TASTING NOTES

THE WINES

Dopf&Irion Alsatian Mix ‘Les Crustaces’ 07 – Solid, foursquare Alsatian Pitcherplonk – just what you would have with either the fabled Quiche, or any of the sea creatures pictured on the label. The primary grape is Sylvaner – not one of the German glamour girls that typically get the press and the magazine covers, but a far more useful item in some regards – a white wine with a crisp citrusy fruit, and an occasional slightly earthy note. Above all, a tasty Germanic white dry enough to set the fears of those with the pervasive fruit paranoia at rest. This all once said, these impressions were based on tasting the 06 vintage – which was current until approx. two days ago. We will be tasting the 07 along side you.

Nederburg ‘Lyric’ Mish-Mosh 07- Not the most elegant of pinkie-curled, ascot-wearing garden party attendees perhaps, but an awfully niftie thing nonetheless. Bright, fresh and endlessly zippy, but with a twirled mustachio dash of dastardliness in the aromatic department – earthiness? TAR? Something. Lock up your daughters.


GRAB BAG


Chateau Graville Lacoste Graves Blanc 07– In my position, with people constantly pouring wines at you with an intent to sell, if on occasion the wines taste lousy, one of the excuses trotted out if the wine is a new arrival is ‘bottle shock’. I would always nod with a polite smile and an unexpressed ‘Yeah, sure’ floating about my head. Well – I tasted this three weeks ago – and... bottle sick. Really. Well, how would you feel if you had been living comfortably in an expansive one bedroom wine barrel and then someone goes and unceremoniously sloshes you through a tube into a cramped outer-Queens basement studio barely the size of the barthroom in your old place? Good Graves is a wonderful thing – most powerful, dense white wines are soft – round and fat (Viogner, Chardonnay, much white Burgundy)- Graves is forceful – punchy- but bright. Like drinking the sensation of chewing celery (or jicama?)– but without the celery flavour, thank goodness.

Massamier la Mignarde Cuvee des Oliviers 05  – What the cheerful, big-bellied jolly French farmer drinks for lunch –are there any jolly French farmers, or are they all lean, embittered and complaining about EU agricultural quotae? In any case, this is what the one in the storybook drinks. It’s perfect – not too dark, not too light, lovely fruit, and a beautiful note of that herbal ‘garrigue’-y thing wine writers are always on about.

Taurino Salice Salento 03 – There have been other occasions in the past (twice, I believe) where I have drawled at length with gloppy emotion over the accomplishments of the winemaker (once pharmacist) Dr. Cosimo Taurino. He is one of those individuals valued as much for who they are, what they do and where they managed to do it. He is now sadly no more. The family, however, continues apace. Oh, yes – the wine. Another seeming backward combination of characteristics – this time an earthy, almost leathery quality born of hot sun and dry soil, and a bright, juicy, raspberry-ish fruit.

Zonnenbloem Pinotage 06,  – Pinotage (check earlier references in these pages) is a nectarine – or tangelo? - of the wine world – a hybrid cross intended to make one grape variety posessing the positive characteristics of two. The raw materials are Pinot Noir (much desired but fussy) and Cinsault (plodding and workmanlike – reliable). There is much debate over whether it is the grape, or the South African soils that are responsible, but it – at best – combines a lovely pinot-ish fruit with an appealing smoky, bacon-ey...odeur. When it misfires, the wine smells like bicycle tires. There, now I’ve done it – you’ll never be able to smell Pinotage again.

Torres Priorat ‘Salmos’ 04 – There was a tortured debate over whether to include this wine in the line-up. The wine part was easy – Priorat is from the rocky, sunparched hills North of Barcelona – huge, often undrinkably powerful wines that have gained much attention from the gearhead macho winedrinking world. This was the first one I have encountered that was at all delicious – this one being plenty delicious. It was the moral side of the thing. Miguel Torres made his reputation in Penedes, the Cava producing region in the north of Spain quite some time ago by beating all the Frenchies with his finest red in a big blind tasting. Why does everyone take such malicious pleasure in beating the French? Were they all really so superior? He has now moved on to taking over the world – with wineries first in Chile, now Ribera del Duero and Priorat – he’ll undoubtedly be opening a wine-o-disney in Florida somewhere and coming out with a line of wine reduction sauces in your supermarket shortly. But the wine is good, so what to do?