TNs: A little trip upstate

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Michael Malinoski
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TNs: A little trip upstate

Post by Michael Malinoski »

I traveled recently with my family to upstate New York to visit some close family friends who had moved up there a while back. My brother-in-law and I brought some wine, and we spent a fun weekend cooking, drinking, gaming, catching up and just generally relaxing with one another.

NV Billecart-Salmon Champagne Brut Réserve. This is popping-fresh on the bright, tensile nose--featuring fine, classy aromas of graphite, granite, apple and pear fruit, toast and dark yeast. It’s taut and minerally on the palate, with loads of smoke, pear, apple, toast and chalk flavors that are crunchy, edgy and driven. It has outstanding structure, a serious but classy feel, and a nicely-focused finish.

2012 Gérard Boulay Sancerre Monts Damnés. There’s a refined feel here to the piquant aromas of straw, grapefruit, fresh-cut herbs, pea tendrils, lemon tea, pear, chalk and lime zest. In the mouth, it has nice body and a giving, substantial feel despite excellent acidic cut and fresh tangy flavors of gooseberries, grapefruit, lime, tangerine and lemon ball candy. It does a nice balancing act all the way through and shows a good finishing kick. It’s still on the young side and can show a bit strident at times, but it tastes great and is very well-made.

2012 Bret Brothers La Soufrandière Mâcon-Vinzelles Clos de Grand Père. This is a hazy, limpid green-yellow color and smells nicely of leesy white peach, tropical yellow fruits, chalk and hazelnut. It’s rich with spiced pear, white peach and Delicious red apple flavors that are soft and seductively creamy-textured, with a leesy feel throughout. It’s concentrated, very smooth and easy-drinking—a pretty nice wine all around.

1996 Maurice Écard Savigny-lès-Beaune 1er Cru Narbantons. There’s a fine, old-style nose to this wine, showing off beautiful aromas of baked cherry, cranberry, decaying earth, autumn leaf pile, mushroom and hints of funky barnyard. It delivers delicious flavors on the palate, with juicy bits of cherries, strawberries and rhubarb pie filling atop a cooler, earthier underbelly of mushroom, dusty earth and cinnamon stick. The tannins are totally resolved, the acidity is relaxed but uplifting, and the wine overall just feels like it’s drinking in a great spot right now. Everyone really enjoyed this one, and it was gone very quickly.

1999 Maison Alex Gambal Savigny-lès-Beaune. This is a darker color than the previous wine, and also possesses a darker-fruited nose delivering scents of blackberries, plums, wood embers, toasted spices and smoky incense. It’s round and a bit plump on the palate, with soft acids, smooth texture, tamped-down tannins, solid fruit stuffing and plenty of savory-tinged flavors of blueberries, blackberries, spices and charred earth. While it’s not as nuanced, classy or compelling as the Ecard, it’s certainly a pleasant wine to sip. It’s time to drink up, though.

2000 Domaine Brusset Gigondas Tradition Le Grand Montmirail. The nose is a bit disjointed for a while with this wine, though it seems to find moderately better footing as the night goes on—delivering mixed aromas of stewed cherries, canned cranberry sauce, leather, horsehide, singed iron and funky sweat. In the mouth, there’s a pleasingly creamy beam of black cherry and black raspberry fruit flavors to go along with bits of spicy leather and funk notes. Unfortunately, it’s just a bit dilute at times, and consistently too narrowly-focused for my tastes, and the alcoholic heat bubbles over too much, as well. I’m not sure how sound of a bottle this was, but it seems like this may be getting over the hill.

2000 Château de Saint-Cosme Gigondas. From the same vintage, this was much better, and seemingly drinking right in the zone at the moment. It shows off moderately dense scents of creamed cherries, blackberry paste, baking spices and sweaty saddle leather on the nose. In the mouth, it’s bold, exuberant and very juicy-fruited, with a smidge of alcoholic heat but loads of deliciously fudgy and sweet-tinged black cherry and black raspberry fruit flavors. It’s pushy, concentrated, fanned-out, plushly-textured and gently tangy, with nice finishing length. Enjoy it now.

2001 Capanna Brunello di Montalcino Riserva. Here one finds dense, dark, seriously earthy but also classy and refined aromas of smoked cherries, black tea, tar, chocolate, tobacco and menthol leaf. It’s quite concentrated, dark and serious in tone on the palate, with a lot of singed iron, pen ink and iodine sorts of notes underpinning black cherry, blackberry and black tea flavors. Fuzzy tannins are definitely still in play, and there’s a stiff backbone surrounding the acidic core. It’s deep, thick, earthy stuff that has a lot of nice flavors, but increasingly coats the teeth and gums with tannin. It’s an impressive specimen but probably still 3 to 5 years away for my tastes.

1995 Château Gloria St. Julien. This bottle was in great shape, delivering an absolutely classically-styled bouquet of dark earth, charred leather, black currant, farmyard funk, spiced blackberry, charred oak and jalapeno pepper aromas. It’s cool and forthright, but very, very inviting at the same time. In the mouth, it has very nice flavors of black currant fruit to go along with accents of bittersweet chocolate, tobacco, menthol and green pepper that are lithe, ropy and pleasingly gripping. The tannins are totally manageable at this point, letting the dark fruit and earth flavors slide beautifully all the way through to the gently chewy finish. The speed at which the bottle disappeared was just one indication of how nicely this is drinking right now.

1999 E. Guigal Côte-Rôtie Brune et Blonde. The aromas here are a little shy, opening up slowly to reveal savory notes of wood embers, toasted oak, singed leather, forest undergrowth, black leather, black olive and blackberries. It’s dense, dark and sticky on the palate, with fudgy flavors of earth, charred meat, blackberries, blueberries and spice. As the night goes on, the fruit sweetens up and the texture turns increasingly velvety, though the finish stays matted and sticky. It’s quite nice, maybe not quite ready for prime time yet, though it probably needed a lot longer decant from us to show its best.

1993 Teldeschi Zinfandel Lot 1 Dry Creek Valley. The cork on this bottle was totally saturated, and there are signs of ongoing leakage underneath the capsule. Sure enough, it smells rather madeirized, with aromas of prunes, dates and brimstone. In the mouth, it’s fairly shot, as well, with some flavors of coffee, toffee, Madeira, praline and caramel but no fruit whatsoever. Too bad, we were hoping for more given past performances of this wine.


-Michael
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AKR
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Re: TNs: A little trip upstate

Post by AKR »

I had the 99 Guigal B & B a number of times over the years, and was always a little underwhelmed by it.

Not sure why, but also have not been wildly pleased with the 00 Gigondas in general either. Not a gigantic sampling, but certainly tried a dozen efforts over the years.
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