The Official Wine Thread

[tattersall]



I am so into Provencal rose. Thank you Style Forvm!

I'm feeling the same way about Hermann Wiemer Rieslings which you and Gome have raved about - picked up a few bottles of the the dry and the semi dry when I was back east and have been enjoying them a great deal.

 

[gomestar]



I'm feeling the same way about Hermann Wiemer Rieslings which you and Gome have raved about - picked up a few bottles of the the dry and the semi dry when I was back east and have been enjoying them a great deal.

 

[gomestar]

A few wines for today. First was a number of selections from Hermann J. Wiemer in the Finger Lakes. Sampled some chards, gewurtz, bubbles, and a lot of rieslings (the reserves, single vineyards, and late harvests). Outstanding from start to finish, I love that place.


And then later at dinner:
St. Aubin something from 2006. It was nice.
Then a 2000 Dujac Charmes Chambertin.
And a 2000 DRC La Tache.
Then some desert wines, but nobody cared.

pics and deets to come later.

 

[erictheobscure]



And then later at dinner:
St. Aubin something from 2006. It was nice.
Then a 2000 Dujac Charmes Chambertin.
And a 2000 DRC La Tache.
Then some desert wines, but nobody cared.

pics and deets to come later.

Jesus Christ.

 

[Concordia]

I haven't opened any 2000 Burgundies of that caliber yet, but I'm having much fun with those I have. The vintage didn't get a lot of favorable attention when it came out, but the best examples have pleasing character and have opened up faster than the 1999 or 2002 equivalents. As Clive Coates said, an excellent restaurant vintage. (I.e., not over-priced, ready to drink soon.)

Last night, I got around to risking a magnum of 1994 Bedell Reserve Merlot from Long Island. I'd bought this maybe 7 or 8 years ago, but never had company or a meal that would have worked for it. Not great, great, wine, but very good. Went over very well with a pile of club steaks. LI wines aren't usually built to last, but Bedells are relatively classic/French in their structure, and the magnum format surely didn't hurt.

 

[Piobaire]

Only one bottle last night, a 2002 Charles Vienot Pommard. Drinking very well. Had a few glasses to go with certain courses, a 5 P Tokay with foie, a Madeira with cheese, a sherry with dessert.

 

[gomestar]

The Vienot Pommard is a really lovely wine.

 

[Piobaire]

We were just having our second course when a table of five sat down across from us. A well turned out elderly couple, a well dressed single elderly lady, and then a couple in their late 50s came in for the last two chairs. The guy in that couple was the owner, whom I know, so we exchanged a few pleasantries. About 40 minutes later he came over to the table. Out of that huge wine list they picked the exact same bottle. He said that was a sign and comped the bottle for us.

 

[erictheobscure]



He said that was a sign and comped the bottle for us.

This seems to be a recurring theme for you. Pretty awesome.

 

[Piobaire]



This seems to be a recurring theme for you. Pretty awesome.

Well, with this particular guy, restaurant ownership is his hobby. In the real world, we've done some major business, and he's much the better for it (so is my organization but that's another story). He's also just a really nice guy.

I do tend to get comped but I tend to concentrate my business in a few locations. Shrewd operators are shrewd and I don't fool myself as to why I get comped on a regular basis. As Tessio said in The Godfather, it's only business.

 

[Manton]



I haven't opened any 2000 Burgundies of that caliber yet, but I'm having much fun with those I have. The vintage didn't get a lot of favorable attention when it came out, but the best examples have pleasing character and have opened up faster than the 1999 or 2002 equivalents. As Clive Coates said, an excellent restaurant vintage. (I.e., not over-priced, ready to drink soon.).

OK, I was present for this adventure. I have had a few DRCs in the past, all from mediocre vintages and all from the "lesser" bottlings. I had never had La Tache.

This wine really had everything. To me the most pronounced notes were spice and the flavor of candied orange/tangerine. But it had everything you can imagine and more, even some menthol/eucalyptus like Heitz Martha's.

When the bottle was opened I was terrified because the cork was stained up the sides and the nose at first showed absolutely nothing and the palate was all acid, nothing else. We opened it at 7 and probably started drinking it around nine, finishing by maybe 10:30.

It was strange how the nose changed depending on how much wine was in the glass. You'd get certain notes after a fresh pour, take a sip, then it would show something else, take another sip, etc. The more was in the glass the better it showed, IMO.

I can't say it was too young. It had no tannin or harshness or funk or anything. It was perfect. I would say that it would hold forever but it's hard to see how it would get better. Still, if that was a too-young wine from a not-great vintage, I cannot imagine what a fully mature example from a top vintage would taste like. I just can't imagine how it could be better.

The Dujac was nice but I really did hate the nose. It was rotten. Had I only smelled it and not tasted it I would have said that it was way over the hill and needed to be poured out. It tasted lovely but the La Tache just blew it away.

 

[Manton]

The Wiemer winery is wonderful. I think they do not do such a great job with reds. Way too acidic and tannic and not enough underneath. But all the whites are fantastic. There is a $15 chard which is a great value. Then a "late harvest" chard dessert wine, something I have never heard of, which was light but very nice. They make a trockenbeerenauslese-quality dessert wine which is very expensive and very, very good. They make only one barrell per year and sell it only at the winery and to one store and a couple of restaurants. I picked up a 375 of that.

I am a big fan of their regular bottlings of Reislings. At the winery I got to taste the Reserve bottlings and one (I think it was only one) of the single-vineyards, which was also very good. I was underwhelmed by their Gewurtz but I think I like Reisling a lot more than Gewurtz so I really didn't care.

Great, great producer and the wines are a terrific value.

 

[gomestar]

+1 with Manton. Unbelievable.

It opened up to just a whole lot of acid. Not much else. A little worrying at first, so we let it sit in the decanter for two hours before our entrees.

We started off with a St. Aubin from 2006, I forget the producer. It was really nice, though not blockbuster or anything. A good way to start.

The Dujac was awesome, at least the palate was. The nose was really odd, the others noted a rotten vegetable hue. I suppose they were right, but I didn't dislike the nose. It was, however, awkward and disjointed. The palate was really great though, and it still had a lot of grip. Lovely texture too, any 'off' scents on the nose were not carried through on the palate. A touch of green too, I thought it was really interesting. It hit its stride right towards the end when it started to integrate itself really well. In the end, it turned out fantastic.

And then the La Tache was poured, and the Dujac was left behind on another planet. I'm not really sure what to say or how to say it, but the evolution of the La Tache over the evening was just sensational. Superb complexity and it changed so much depending on how much you poured into the glass, how much you swirrled, how soon since your last bite of food, etc. Endless finish. It opened up to a really beautiful spice note, then come some deep plumbs, sensational rose pedals, then orange blossoms (it reminded me of visiting Tucson with my brother as he was looking at colleges, the courtyard of our room was full of orange trees that were blossoming), then a lovely charcoal came through, then stewed berries, and then more and more. I mean, I'm not one to list flavor after flavor (in fact I think that's pretty lame), but I can't help it here. The wine had everything, and it was all so vivid, and then a moment later it was something else. I couldn't help but think how utterly gorgeous it would be in 5, 10, 20 years when more age happens and more integration happens. It was (as you can see) drinking sensationally right now, but had the legs to go on and on and I can only imagine what it will continue to deliver.

 

[audiophilia]



The Wiemer winery is wonderful. I think they do not do such a great job with reds. Way too acidic and tannic and not enough underneath.

Yup.

 

[audiophilia]

Some excellent wines last week. The 2001 Segla Margaux was especially lovely. The fairly inexpensive CdP was excellent.