TNs, including '88 d'Issan

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Michael Malinoski
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TNs, including '88 d'Issan

Post by Michael Malinoski »

Three of us got together recently to enjoy some wines from our cellars with the excellent fare served at one of our fine local restaurants. The bottle count was maybe a bit excessive for 3 guys, but we still managed to do some serious damage over the course of a long evening.

1996 Pol Roger Champagne Extra Cuvee de Reserve. This wine shows off a nice maturing bouquet of pear, crabapple, lemon oil, star fruit, ginger, nutmeg, honey and beeswax aromas that fan out in a giving tapestry. In the mouth, it’s a bit more tangy and tingly than I was expecting on the entry, but it foams up and fans out nicely through the creamy mid-palate featuring pleasing apple, ginger, spice and lime flavors. However, it cinches up a bit on the squeaky-textured finish that feels just a bit too mouth puckering at times. We all enjoyed it a good deal, but it was just a tad uneven on this night in my opinion.

2000 Domaine des Comtes Lafon Meursault Clos de la Barre. The nose here is classy but fairly restrained and introspective in its aromas of lemon, smoked herbs, chalk, orange peel, apple and allspice. On the palate, it’s more outgoing, delivering tasty flavors of sweet yellow apple, oak, vanillin, nutmeg and something akin to elderflower liqueur in the background. There’s not even a hint of premox anywhere to be found. It feels moderately big-boned and well-structured, but still a bit reined in and controlled. I’d like to see it unwind just a bit more, but is it worth the risk of further aging?

2003 Brewer-Clifton Chardonnay Sweeney Canyon Santa Rita Hills. On the nose, this smells a bit like a granite quarry to me, with coiled aromas of pulverized stone, wet chalk, meadow flowers, fresh-cut chive and lemongrass showing great focus and cool refinement. In the mouth, it’s broad and sneaky-dense but controlled and measured, with an oily-rich texture and loads of stone and mineral-tinged accents surrounding a core of pear, apple, lemon ball and herb flavors. At 11 years of age, this still feels like it has a ways to go.

1988 Château d'Issan Margaux. The bouquet here is rather gentlemanly in personality, coming across as old-fashioned and stately, but handsome in its fine aromas of cassis, tobacco, menthol, charred embers, dried mud and sawn cedar wood. It’s a bit narrow on the palate at this stage of the game, and it’s somewhat pinched now and again, but over the course of the evening one finds a lot to like, such as a complete lack of tannic interference, fine Old World flavors of black currant, iron filings, iodine and raw meat, and a tidy clean finishing kick that gets better as the night goes along. It lacks some weight and flesh, to be sure, and it’s quite clearly time to drink up, but I enjoyed my time with this old claret.

2000 La Rioja Alta Rioja Gran Reserva 904. Right off the bat, this wine projects an intensely sexy and exotic aromatic profile of eucalyptus, balsa wood, sweet cherry candy, red licorice rope, baking spices and musky forest undergrowth aromas that everyone at the table really falls for. In the mouth, it’s a similar story—delivering a fun, exuberant flavor tapestry of cherry candy, red currant, raspberry puree and toasted spice on a medium-weighted frame. It has fine balance, refined tannins, nice sour acidity levels, and yielding structure. It’s drinking great, with a lot of zesty energy and drive.

2000 Domaine Santa Duc Gigondas. I’ve read some unflattering notes on this wine recently, but this was a real good showing for us. It features a lively, effusive bouquet of raspberry, cassis liqueur, mossy stones, black tea and shaved wood aromas inviting you right in. In the mouth, it also shows a lot of exuberance--with mouth-filling and outgoing fruit flavors of raspberry candy and cherry paste in a moderately high-toned and gently alcoholic mix. It’s bright and bold, rather smooth and giving, showing good stuffing and plenty of life.

2000 Domaine du Pégaü Châteauneuf-du-Pape Cuvée Réservée. This is terrific on the nose, showing spiced leather, garrigue, dusty dirt road, sunbaked clay, red currant and cranberry aromas in a classically-styled rendering. In the mouth, there’s sour cherry, spice, desiccated flower and earth elements that work together in easy harmony with no hard edges anywhere. It’s a seamless beauty that’s drinking right in the zone.

1999 Lane Tanner Syrah French Camp Vineyard San Luis Obispo County. This is modestly dense and pasty on the nose, exhibiting aromas of pen ink, iodine, black leather, blackberry, wild blueberries, camphor and spice. It’s lush-textured but medium-weighted on the palate, with sweet blueberry, boysenberry, prune, cherry paste and cocoa flavors. It’s concentrated and sweet but hardly over the top. One guy really didn’t like it, but two of us thought it was pretty decent, if perhaps a bit uninspiring.

1999 René Renou Bonnezeaux Cuvée Zenith. On the nose, this is lovely--with all sorts of paraffin wax, slate, quince paste, grapefruit, white peach and lilac scents wafting up out of the glass. In the mouth, it’s loaded with pear, peach and white currant fruit with moderated sweetness and cool underpinning acidity. It’s very nice, indeed.


-Michael
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