oenoLog

Go away

2011-12-14T00:55:00.001-05:00

It’s moving day.

A site and a blog are bad enough. A site, a blog, and another blog are unworkable. And it’s worse when only one sees new content over any given period, as so often happens here.

So, everything’s moving to a single-family home, albeit a large one. I’ll soon set up the proper redirects and such, and on some future day all the retrograde content will go away.

The new digs? They’re still called oenoLogic, but they’re at thoriverson.com, where they should have been all along. What can I say? The oenoLogician fears change, except perhaps for the spare kind.

Almost all the content that was here is now there. Essays and rants, yes, and also all the tasting notes that used to be here. What’s yet to shift geographies in their full form are the travelogues, which were written in the HTML equivalent of Sumerian and will need to be moved by hand. My joy is…hard to quantify.

But meanwhile? Get the heck out of here. Go. Go. Go!

Bull

2011-12-01T19:25:00.003-05:00

Allegrini 1997 “Palazzo della Torre” (Veneto) – Dead. Dense, purple-black, and texturally rich, but dead. (11/11)

I forgot

2011-12-01T19:25:00.001-05:00

Pike “Auld Acquaintance Happy Holiday Ale” (Washington) – Solid and heavy, as befits the genre, with some spicy/metallic/preserved lemon stuff going on. Very linear. (11/11)

Post-Fogarty

2011-12-01T19:24:00.001-05:00

Castello della Paneretta 1999 Chianti Classico Riserva (Tuscany) – Ashen red fruit, wan and fading. Drink up a few years ago. (11/11)

Patty Smythe

2011-12-01T19:23:00.001-05:00

Karly 2008 Zinfandel “Warrior Fires” (Amador County) – 15.4%. Giant, dark, dusty fruit that’s trying way too hard. Power without substance. To write more about what I found would be giving the wine more credit than it deserves for overachievement despite a lack of something to say. Let up on the gas pedal, please. (11/11)

Stop, look, Listán

2011-11-10T11:51:00.001-05:00

Carballo 2008 La Palma Listán Blanco (Canary Islands) – There’s a sort of banana-cream-in-amber character that slowly-oxidized wines – versus the ultra-natural ones that cavort their fields of youth with oxygen and other ill-favored companions – take on with time (see, for example, Mosel riesling), but carefully-nurtured young wines can sometimes achieve this character on the early side with a measured dose of postnatal oxygen. Here’s one, or so it seems, though I’d be very wary of calling it predominately oxidized or even oxidative. Rather, it’s quite fruit-dominated (“fruit” standing in for a range of sunlight and blossoming florals cut with the redolence of the fruit half of a Western produce aisle) at the moment. It’s also very low-acid, though that should not be mistaken for warm-climate sludge; this has enough structure to sustain it for the nonce. There are darker intimations of metal-jacketed red cherries, even black cherries, that play around with the blood orange finish, teasing that it might plan to be something or somewhere other than what and where it is. Anyway, a lot of words have just passed without my having gotten a complete grasp on the wine, and I think the only clear conclusion is that this is pretty fascinating stuff. (11/11)

'cross the wide Missouri

2011-11-10T11:50:00.003-05:00

Shenandoah 2009 Zinfandel “Special Reserve” (California) – 14.5%. Kinda dull, rote, zin-by-numbers…except that it’s flatter than that, bringing charred paper and an air of complete, Kristen Stewart-like indifference to its mission. (11/11)

Pokerville? I don't even know'erville!

2011-11-10T11:49:00.003-05:00

Karly 2009 Zinfandel Pokerville (Amador County) – 14.5%...and yes, the name means what you think; it was apparently the name of the town of Plymouth at one point during the gold rush years, and for the immediately obvious reason to anyone who thinks about leisure-time activities for a bunch of men who’ve spent weeks scratching for little more than riches and mosquitoes. (It’s kind of a shame they changed it.) Bursty fruit, as if the half-wild, half-cultivated berries are being crushed as the wine’s sipped. Or, rather, guzzled. This isn’t a sipping wine. Fruity fun. (11/11)

Free Jasmin

2011-11-10T11:48:00.004-05:00

Jasmin 1996 Côte-Rôtie (Rhône) – This is the first bottle of a quantity of these that has not been a wretched, stewed mess (and/or corked). And while it’s no great wine, it is at least good…and, for a change, tastes like a Côte-Rôtie rather than a toxic waste dump. Keening acidity, brittle and somewhat flaky dried-meat aromatics that blend seamlessly into an equally brittle and flaky structure, and a dusting of blended peppercorns. Quite pleasant. Of course, a Jasmin Côte-Rôtie should be a good deal more than “quite pleasant,” but at this point I’ll take what I can get. (11/11)

Walden Rhône

2011-11-10T11:48:00.000-05:00

Costières & Soleil “Sélection Laurence Féraud” 2005 Côtes-du-Rhône-Villages Séguret (Rhône) – Fading, with its structure now taking control of the dark, earthen, somewhat tarred fruit. Drink up. (11/11)

Just a Wegeler guy

2011-11-10T11:47:00.003-05:00

Wegeler 1999 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese 02 001 (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) – Thai riesling (lemongrass, Makrut lime leaf, palm sugar), with the texture but not the taste of coconut cream. Very intense, very sweet, but as certain omissions in the list of Thai referents might suggest, somewhat acid-deficient. It’s not flabby, but there’s no respite for its thickness nor its sugar. Is it ready? Well, it’s not falling apart, but I’m dubious that more time is going to lead to anything measurably better. (11/11)

Chimay, Chimay, cocoa bop

2011-11-10T11:46:00.001-05:00

Chimay Trappist Ale “Grandes Réserve” (Belgium) – This was purchased in 2008, but unless “LAN-662” is the lot number (and it may be) I have no way to know exactly what release it was. And unlike many of my beer aging experiments, this was one was a resounding success. Richer, darker, and more complex than at release (and it’s a pretty excellent beer even then), with more of its aromatics inhabiting the coffee, molasses, and chocolate realms. Yet it’s not sweeter. In fact, the opposite, as if its asymptote is amaro rather than that suggested by the sweet-ish aromas. I love this, and will promptly stash more in the cellar..(11/11)

David

2011-11-10T11:45:00.004-05:00

Duvel 2009 Golden Ale (Belgium) – A beer aging experiment. This didn’t fail like some have, but it didn’t lead to much reward either: the beer is more lemon-dominated than its richer youth, and more about frothy yeastiness than much in the way of gained complexity. To make a wine analogy, aging it more or less turned a decent Champagne into a good Prosecco. (11/11)

Bech & call

2011-11-10T11:45:00.000-05:00

Jan Becker Becherovka (Czech Republic) – Texturally Chartreuse-like but aromatically more like a spice accident. Cinnamon, for certain, and I’m pretty sure about cloves, and there’s a supporting role played by anise. Sweet, but cut with some bitterness, it’s less akin to actual bitters than it is to the sort of herbal quasi-liqueurs found all over Europe but rarely far afield from their region of production. (This bottle, in fact, was smuggled back…though it seems that it’s legally available in the States these days.) Fun. (10/11)

Pigato in a poke

2011-11-10T11:44:00.001-05:00

Terrebianche 2010 Riviera Ligure di Ponente Pigato (Liguria) – Almond flesh and pine nuts, hearts of palm, vibrant but ripe acidity, white pepper. And inside, a beige-toned and bony skeleton of structure. It’s worrisomely short, but that’s really carping about a generally quite decent wine. (10/11)

BB bite

2011-11-10T11:43:00.001-05:00

Barmès Buecher 2007 Crémant d’Alsace (Alsace) – Clean. Papered-over lemon and apple skin. Not really much more than that; an unusually simple performance for this wine, which is never overly complex but usually shows more than this. Blame barometric pressure or something. (10/11)

Saula

2011-11-10T11:42:00.003-05:00

Kathy Lynskey 2005 “Single Vineyard” Gewürztraminer (Marlborough) – Which vineyard is going solo here? Ms. Lynskey doesn’t say. But while Marlborough is not, historically, New Zealand’s premiere bid at spicy stardom, my long-standing argument – really, I’ve been on this kick since the 90s – that the Long White Cloud is the next-to-Alsace-best source of full-throttled gewürztraminer is not belied by this wine. No, it’s not near the top of the heap. Yes, it’s just a little long in the tooth (it’s always worth remembering that New Zealand’s clonal material is, in general, absurdly young and frequently suboptimal), but what’s left is a coal-soaked study in bacon-fried lychee and drying, almost “orange wine”-like skins. There’s no lushness here, nor more than a token nod at what was, once, probably a noticeable softening from residual sugar. But it was still probably a dry-intentioned wine in its youth, and it most certainly is now, and that’s not always found in tandem with this sort of spice; usually, dry gewürztraminer outside of Alsace can rise to no more aromatic plateau than rose petals. So…a lot of words, not much of a conclusion. Here’s one: if it’s cheap (and this certainly was; I catch a whiff of “inventory clearance” from this bottle), one could really do a lot worse. (10/11)

Bekaa call

2011-11-10T11:41:00.001-05:00

Hochar “Château Musar” 2001 Red (Bekaa Valley) – Opening Musar and finding only a small handful of flaws is like winning the lottery, albeit with a payoff in swampwater currency. But other than the most fundamentalist natural wine cultists, who will excuse just about anything, I doubt anyone would give this a second thought were the underlying material not so appealing in the face of, and often despite, those flaws. Still, it’s not a wine for everyone even in the best of conditions, and at our table of three there’s one who adores it (me), one who expressed surprised approval, and one who outright rejects it as being more or less undrinkable. Such is the Musar experience. This bottle, with its reasonably-restrained brett and tolerable volatile acidity (a VA-phobe is saying this, mind), shows that not-mature/full-mature blend of berries and roasted things that’s more or less the Musar signature, with a bracing slap of tannin and a juicily crisp finish. Will it age? Probably. It usually does, and this seems to have the structure for it. But it’s only going to get weirder. (10/11)

Here's Johnn

2011-11-10T11:34:00.004-05:00

Zidarich 2008 Carso Vitovska (Friuli-Venezia Giulia) – Flowers and saline-infused nettles scraped with the rough edge of a dull razor of tannin. A wine that will not be ignored, but to pay it sufficient attention demonstrates how its skin-contact has, at least in the interim, gotten a bit out of hand in relation to its fruit. Will that change with time? Quite possibly. It’s a fascinating exploration of one of the edges of orange winedom, but even such edgeworking vinification needs an occasional sense of restraint, and I’m not entirely sure it was exercised here. Still, this can all be mitigated – somewhat – with sufficiently fatty food, the sort that would typically require something from the much more russet genre. (10/11)

Having more fun

2011-11-10T11:34:00.000-05:00

Calek 2010 “Blonde” (Ardèche) – Incandescent-lit sepia photographs, the buzz and rattle of an old electric space heater, a dusty shaft of sunlight from an ill-fitting doorframe, and just a hint of a mysteriously organic aroma emanating from somewhere just offstage. (10/11)

Oud Papi

2011-11-10T11:31:00.001-05:00

Papilloud 2009 Amigne de Vétroz Grand Cru (Valais) – Off-dry and thoroughly alive…even to the point of a bit of spritz (or at least a tactile analogue of same)…with a chalky texture that, due to the sugar, veers occasionally in the direction of powdered fruit candy. Yet the wine is not candied at all, though it does seem to be done up in rosé hues despite being a white wine. The finish, too, is notable not only for its duration for the way it starts to swirl and veer like runaway fireworks. A fascinating wine at, like so much from Switzerland, an extravagantly aspirational price. (10/11)

Seigneurs moment

2011-11-10T11:29:00.003-05:00

Trimbach 2001 Gewurztraminer “Cuvée des Seigneurs de Ribeaupierre” (Alsace) – A very recent purchase, allegedly due to the winery’s recently-abandoned importer dumping their stocks on large-volume buyers (in this case, the dreaded Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board), and from one of apparently 19 or so cases stacked in a suburban outpost of Pennsylvania’s ridiculous liquor monopoly and priced at far less than 50% of what I’d consider current retail. Now, I’m quite a fan of these sorts of inventory clearance sales, but this particular release has me either doubting the story or concerned on a wider scale, because there are signs of heat damage here. Not major, and not yet all that apparent in the wine (which is different from invisible), but there’s seepage enough to have escaped about a quarter of the corks and cause the capsules to become adhesive little nightmares of glutinous packaging. My expanded universe of worry results from a concern that the wine was delivered in this condition, which means that the damage occurred at the importer level, which would be – let me emphasize my personal concern on this point as person with more Trimbach in his cellar than any other wine – horrifying to contemplate. The other possibility, of course, is that the wine was fine at delivery and was very quickly baked by the fine folks at the PLCB, who is not legendary for their nurturing storage conditions. (Is that vague enough to keep the lawyers at bay?)

So what’s left? The sort of high-minded, mineral, wet gewurztraminer this cuvée is known for, resting more on its structure than almost any other Alsatian gewurztraminer of note. But a bit more dilute than I’d expect at this stage (I do expect closure from these wines, and this would be the time for it, but I think there’s more than a closed period at work here), and the bacony stage that this wine usually finds in its maturity has a little more smoke than usual, with just the faintest touch of caramelization. Based on which, of course, I see the heat damage that I expect from the condition of the bottles, though I wonder if I’d note it had I not seen the physical evidence. Based on this performance, I’m probably going to plow through most of these over the fairly term, leaving the smaller quantity of at-release purchases for a later date. (10/11)

From this point Hengst

2011-11-10T11:28:00.005-05:00

Barmès Buecher 2001 Gewurztraminer Hengst (Alsace) – Lavish. Lychee, yes, but also cashews-as-fruit, and almonds. Hazelnuts. Just a hint of smoked pork. Very sweet, luxuriantly spicy, and…OK, yes, it’s a little acid-deficient for all that sweetness, but what does one expect from Hengst gewurztraminer in a (very) good vintage? In terms of age, I’d say it’s at very, very early maturity right now. Those who want a little more bacon to “cut” the sugar will have to wait. (10/11)

Pfersigberg, we take Manhattan

2011-11-10T11:28:00.001-05:00

Barmès Buecher 2004 Gewurztraminer Pfersigberg (Alsace) – Mildly corked, probably (it’s below my threshold, at least). What’s certain is that it’s not right. Pfersigberg can show as brittle, but this is just absent. (10/11)

Ivresse-ive

2011-11-10T11:27:00.001-05:00

Breton 2005 Bourgueil “Nuits d’Ivresse” (Loire) – Since I’m incapable of holding on to this wine long enough to see how it ages, I have to rely on more responsible pals to find out how long the nights of drunkenness can last. It turns out: at least this long, and quite possibly longer. This is one of the most overtly appealing wines from this appellation, grape, or producer I’ve ever tasted…it practically sings with polychromatic beauty. (10/11)