Feel the heat

Storrs 2007 Sauvignon Blanc (San Lucas) – Light, yet with a certain intensity of grapey fruit, plus melon. Nice balance. Tasty. (9/08)

Storrs 2007 Chardonnay (Santa Cruz Mountains) – Fig, peach, and ripe, velvet-textured apple. Very structured, with a long finish. There’s a little zing of alcohol and bit of oak, but this is the most balanced chardonnay I’ve yet tasted from Storrs, who often seems to craft much thicker versions of this variety. (9/08)

Storrs 2006 Chardonnay Christie (Santa Cruz Mountains) – Honeyed peach candy and thick butterscotch, long and huge. A wine of vivid neon. Huge. Let me say that again: HUGE. There are some nods to balance, but this is a stew rather than a broth; those who prefer that sort of texture will love it, others will most definitely not. Stylistic issues aside, it’s a very impressive wine. Personally, I could drink about a thimbleful of it. (9/08)

Storrs 2006 Pinot Noir (Santa Cruz Mountains) – Strawberry, red cherry, and plenty of heat (it’s 15.2% alcohol, which may theoretically be supportable in a much better-endowed pinot, but just doesn’t work here; excess heat has been a problem with many of the Storrs pinot noirs). There’s some crispness that makes an attempt at lightening, but overall the wine’s just too hot to enjoy. (9/08)

Storrs 2005 Two Creek (Santa Clara County) – Grenache, syrah, and grand noir, 14.4%. Smoke liqueur and red licorice with apple rind and a significant haze of heat. Eh. (9/08)

Storrs 2005 Zinfandel Rusty Ridge (Santa Clara County) – 15.2%. Plum, heather, lavender, plus the twists and tangles of wild vines. Chewy, with good acidity. Balanced. The finish is supple. Quite good. (9/08)

Storrs 2001 “BXR” (San Francisco Bay) – Plum soup, dark chocolate, and green tannin. There’s good length and palate presence, but the wine’s too thick for its own good, and then there’s that irritating underripe shade to the structure. I have never cared for this wine, in any vintage. (9/08)

Storrs 2006 Gewürztraminer Viento (Monterey) – Lychee soap, crystalline pear, honeydew melon, and plenty of acidity with just an edge of skin bitterness. Turns more floral as it lingers. Really nice. Balanced, with both tension and length. A return to the gewürztraminers I used to like so much from this producer, after a few weaker efforts. (9/08)

Storrs is a winery I visit anytime I’m in the area, and there’s always something good. The problem is that it’s rarely the same wine as it was the last time. Stylistically, I think that they’ve let alcohol levels get a little bit away from them; it’s one thing in zinfandel, a very different thing in a pinot noir or chardonnay.

Kiwi cornucopia

Here’s the final installment of a New Zealand Winegrowers trade tasting; the first part dealt with sauvignon blanc, the second with pinot noir, and the third with riesling. Everything else is here. Notes are of the hit-and-run variety due to the format, so please read them in that context.

Kim Crawford 2008 “Unoaked” Chardonnay (Gisborne/Hawke’s Bay) – Sweet tropical candy. Dried fruit. Rainier cherry? Eh. (3/09)

Babich 2008 “Unoaked” Chardonnay (Marlborough) – Bitter but clean. Rinds and gravel. Seems off-dry. OK. (3/09)

Villa Maria “Private Bin” 2008 Chardonnay (Marlborough) – Ripe orange and fig with a hint of butter. Big, clean, and nice. This is what cheap chardonnay should taste like. (3/09)

Oyster Bay 2008 Chardonnay (Marlborough) – Spice and milk. Is there fruit? It’s hard to say. Worked to death, and no fun. (3/09)

Chardonnay is being abandoned as a commodity grape in New Zealand. That’s not a reflection of plantings – it’s quite widely-grown, though it pales in comparison to sauvignon blanc, and isn’t even quite as popular as pinot noir – but a reflection of its marketing, which is mostly nonexistent in the States. (In New Zealand itself, things are a little different.) And – I can’t believe I’m about to say this – it’s a shame.

The unoaked style has fresh potential on the ground in its country of origin, but as an export wine isn’t of much use; it’s probably not worth the tariff to get these friendly, simple wines to other shores. However, the fruit intensity of the better New Zealand chardonnays (most of which are oaked to some degree) is so vivid and pure that it would be a shame to abandon the grape. None of which are represented here, in my opinion, and it’s true that the world hardly needs more chardonnay, but I think there’s real potential that, while not going untapped, is perhaps going unrealized by worldwide consumers.

One caveat on the preceding notes: these chardonnays were tasted immediately after the sauvignon blancs, and (in my opinion) suffered in contrast with the acidity and green intensity of that grape.

Hans 2007 Viognier (Marlborough) – Lanolin and pretty flowers. Oil, peanut, some spice. Oak? I’m not sure. Fantastic flavors, though they’re sticky and thick. Lurid, as many viogniers are. Not bad? Particular, for sure. (3/09)

I keep tasting interesting viogniers from New Zealand, and then returning to find they’ve fallen on harder times. It’s a cranky grape, for sure, with as many detractors as fans. But if there’s potential, and someone can figure out how to retain some acid in the wine, there’s probably a market.

Nobilo “Regional Collection” 2008 Pinot Grigio (East Coast) – Big yellow/white/green fruit with a flat finish. Simple and boring. (3/09)

Nautilus 2008 Pinot Gris (Marlborough) – Very sweet and spicy. Wobbly Wine as Pop Rocks. (3/09)

Te Mara 2008 Pinot Gris (Central Otago) – Sticky pear, spice, and minerality. Good intensity. Vivid. Neon-electric. I’d call this a CGI pinot gris, and in a good way, but it’s not for everyone. (3/09)

Spy Valley 2007 Pinot Gris (Marlborough) – Grass, pear skin. Balanced but insignificant. (3/09)

Hans 2007 Pinot Gris (Marlborough) – Lotion, dried pear. A lingering impression of something being fried, though it’s not clear what. Weird and not very good. (3/09)

There has been an explosion of pinot gris in New Zealand. Why? Ask winemakers. When they’re being honest, they’ll tell you that it’s a mystery to them, as well. But they’ll be in the process of making one while they tell you that. Whether there’s an insatiable demand for the grape, or just a demand “created” by the fact that there’s rather a lot to sell, the fact is that New Zealand is awash in the stuff.

Fruit-forward, a little sweet, and flaw-free. That’s the recipe for a successful commercial white wine, and so much pinot gris from New Zealand is made this way that its cash-cow role is rather clear to see. But there’s a problem. It’s not that so few rise to any real significance, it’s that even among the bottlings that don’t try, few of them are of much interest at all. In fact, some winemakers will – with an embarrassed tone – tell you exactly that, if you ask. And yet, they’re producing the wine in ever-increasing quantities. By the numbers, less than 200 hectares in 2000 have become over 1300 hectares in 2008, and exports have skyrocketed from 200,000 liters in 2004 to almost 1,300,000 liters in 2008. Who’s buying this stuff? No one I know. Yet there must be a market somewhere. Asia? The UK? Australia?

Pinot gris can be interesting in two ways: rich, mineralistic, and spicy in the mode of Alsace (and the only successful wine of this tasting, the Te Mara, is in that style), or mineral-driven but clean and clear, in the mode of regions Germanic and northeastern Italy. Otherwise, it’s a boring grape that makes offensively inoffensive wine.

Much more is going to have to be done with the grape to convince me that it’s worthwhile for so much of it to be produced in New Zealand. For now, it’s their California chardonnay. And I don’t mean that as a compliment.

Spy Valley 2005 Gewürztraminer (Marlborough) – Mercaptans. Old cashews and tin. Useless. (3/09)

While I’ve often said that gewürztraminer is a grape with which New Zealand could make a big international splash, had they only the will, the fact is that there’s no worldwide clamor for alternative gewürztraminer sources. (In fact, New Zealand’s exports of gewürztraminer fell last year.) Certainly this wine will do nothing to convince anyone. Look to Gisborne and Martinborough for much, much, much better examples, the best of which hold their heads high in the company of Alsace, the unquestioned best region for the grape.

Monkey Bay 2007 Rosé (East Coast) – Disgusting synthetic aromas and flavors. Blech. (3/09)

No comment.

Oyster Bay 2007 Merlot (Hawke’s Bay) – Watermelon Jolly Rancher. In a merlot? No thanks. (3/09)

Kennedy Point 2005 Merlot (Waikehe Island) – Blueberry soup with biting tannin. Ick. (3/09)

Villa Maria “Private Bin” 2007 Merlot/Cabernet Sauvignon (Hawke’s Bay) – Herbed blueberry and blackberry. Simple, clean, and good according to the nose. But the palate? Baked. And the finish is horrid. (3/09)

Trinity Hill 2006 Merlot/Cabernet Sauvignon Gimblett Gravels “The Gimblett” (Hawke’s Bay) – Chunky peanut butter, which melds with a gravelly texture. Incredibly rough. Uninteresting despite the terroir signature. (3/09)

Hans 2001 Merlot/Cabernet Sauvignon “Spirit of Marlborough” (Marlborough) – Ripe fruit (mostly black), fresh tobacco, smoke, and black dirt. A bit short and unsubstantial, but OK. (3/09)

There are quality wines made from the Bordeaux varieties in New Zealand. Obviously, none are represented above (and the prices being asked for these wines are ludicrous in relation to their quality), but they absolutely do exist. And not just from Hawke’s Bay, though that’s where current attention is focused. Waiheke Island has its stars, certainly, but the rest of the (largely unknown in the U.S.) Auckland-surrounding and Northland appellations have potential. Elsewhere, it’s very much a producer-by-producer thing.

Kennedy Point 2007 Syrah (Waiheke Island) – Cassis, blueberry, and cranberry with a long, sugary finish. No good. (3/09)

Trinity Hill 2007 Syrah Gimblett Gravels (Hawke’s Bay) – Blueberry, bark, smoke, and dirt. Drinkable. (3/09)

The Australia-New Zealand rivalry in so many things rarely intrudes on matters vinous. In fact, for a long while the industries complemented each other’s markets: New Zealand imported a lot of hefty Australian reds, while Australia provided a ready market for New Zealand’s crisp, clean whites. Each seemed to be able to fill a perceived hole in the other’s stylistic range. Often, the only time Australia would come up in discussions with New Zealand winemakers would be as contrast to a fairly widespread belief that, given New Zealand’s climates, looking to Australia for viticultural advice would be a mistake. Yes, New Zealand is very clearly a New World producer, and this is reflected in their wines, but in terms of philosophy it was decided that Europe would be the model.

In making this choice, New Zealand chose a difficult path for itself, because the slow advance of vine age, the painstaking revelation of terroir, and the endless search for complexity, balance, and soul necessary to model an industry after Europe (for whether or not one agrees with these characterizations, those are the beliefs being pursued) are not aligned with the most commercially successful New World winemaking practices. New Zealand’s successes have, in fact, come largely along those latter lines: fruit-forward, varietally-designated wines that make an immediate impression. Yet it’s clear, especially from the relentless focus on pinot noir – that most difficult of grapes – that the aspiration to do otherwise remains. And each year, a few more New Zealand wines enter into a conversation in which they can hold their own with their inspirations. Not equality, yet, but quality.

In that process, a minor revelation has snuck up on New Zealand’s winemakers: they can produce high-quality syrah. And that while, at its best, it doesn’t taste like European syrah, it tastes a lot less like Australian shiraz. Power, intensity, concentration…these are not its calling cards. But earth? Underbrush? Sensitivity to terroir? They’re coming along.

New Zealanders can barely contain their glee. No, they’re never going to “beat” the commercial dominance of Aussie shiraz – they could never produce that sort of quantity, even if they uprooted all the sheep and replaced them with syrah vines – but they could, perhaps, drive a deep wedge into a notion that the source for quality New World syrah is their much larger neighbor to the northwest. And they can do it by directly appealing to those who find many Australian shirazes (and some of their Californian and South African counterparts) too brawny. As anyone familiar with the Aussie/Kiwi rivalry can imagine, there’s not much resistance to this idea.

Supposition? Speculation? Not really. Consider: the grape is, almost universally, called syrah – not shiraz – on New Zealand bottles. That’s no accident.

As for the wines in this tasting? They obviously won’t convince anyone of anything.

TN: Blanck fate

Blanck 2002 Gewurztraminer Altenbourg (Alsace) – Intense, sun-baked varietal topnotes of peach and lychee lead to deeper, spicier, more mineralized strata within. This is big and intense, but it’s also structured, and will age very nicely. Right now, it’s still in a fine, open, youthful state, though bottles here and there are starting to close. Soonish, it’ll need a half-dozen years – at least – to show its stuff. (6/07)

TN: Bach again

Trimbach 2004 Gewurztraminer (Alsace) – Structured, pure, and flavorful, with all the classic gewürztraminer notes paired with fine acidity and a pointed acidic thrust. Delicious. (6/07)

TN: Gewurz of times

Trimbach 2004 Gewurztraminer (Alsace) – Lithe dried lychee, peach skin and bitter cashew oil with a firm, crisp underbelly. Were this not gewürztraminer, it could almost be labeled delicate. Finely poised and balanced, with the apparent ability to age…though I don’t know how much benefit there will ultimately be. (6/07)

53 bottles of wine on the wall (Alsace/Paris, pt. 5)

(The original version, with more photos, is here.)

29 March 2006 – Rorschwihr, France

Rolly Gassmann (1, rue de l’Eglise) – Tasting rooms have a purpose, and that purpose is often the unloading of branded trinkets and oenodoodads on unsuspecting tourists. Wine – poured by the $15 taste in logo-etched glasses – often becomes little more than a lubricant for commerce. Not all tasting rooms are like this, but far too many are, especially in the New World.

In Europe, and especially at the more traditional producers, this paradigm often veers precipitously to its opposite. Wine is the focus (and indeed, the selling of “My Parents Went to Alsace & All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt”-type paraphernalia would be scandalous), but the breadth and depth of the options can be more than a little overwhelming for the tentative novice. Old World winemaking families, especially those that helm their own tasting rooms, may appear reserved at first blush, but are often willing to open a lot of wine. And so there’s a sort of vetting process that goes on in such encounters; casual drop-in visitors interested only in a few bottles for the week or a souvenir for the suitcase will limit themselves (and be limited by the winery) to what they know, bottom-feeding their way through basic varietal or appellation-wide bottlings, while more informed or enthusiastic visitors will hone in on the higher-end, terroir-delimited and/or aspirational wines, for which they will usually be rewarded by a greater willingness to uncork the good stuff.

But for the serious student of wine, this potential bounty can lead to problems. Nowhere is this made more painfully obvious than in Alsace, where there are four major and a half-dozen auxiliary varieties made at virtually every property, in bottlings ranging from varietal to village to lieu-dit to grand cru, plus blends of every composition, sparkling wines, late-harvest and ultra-late-harvest wines, and occasionally even ephemera like vins de paille. Bigger négociants and cooperatives sometimes do all these things under multiple labels at multiple price points. Thus, only the timid or the pressed-for-time will spend much less than an hour at even the most humble establishment. And there’s a good reason that few delve into the dark and chilly world of barrel tasting in this region: at some wineries, this could take a week of tongue-numbing work.

To us, this all sounds like a perverse sort of fun. As long as the wines are good, we figure, let’s keep ’em coming. At Rolly Gassmann, however, we may have finally met our match.

The cellar is easy to find…tucked right behind Rorschwihr’s small church…and the proprietors – elderly mother and son, this morning – are as diminutive as the legend that precedes them (some have compared them to hobbits, though we see no sign of hairy feet). The winemaking son is currently leading a large group of culinary & sommelier-school students (all of whom look like they’d be too young to drink in the United States) though an informative tasting, and so we spend our first half-hour with his mother. To her expected question – “what would you like to taste?” – we give the answer that seals our fate: “oh, whatever you have open.” As she starts pulling bottles from cases, tables, racks and closets, we realize that it’s going to be a long morning. A long morning.

Rolly Gassmann 2004 Sylvaner Weingarten de Rorschwihr (Alsace) – Ripe and concentrated tangerine, with tomato hovering around the perimeter. Fresh-tasting at first, it begins to edge towards synthetic on the finish.

Rolly Gassmann 1999 Sylvaner Weingarten de Rorschwihr (Alsace) – Creamed corn and botrytis-like peach infusion, with a lovely but dangerous balance tilted towards thickness. Impressive.

Here are two completely different takes on this oft-maligned grape…or, perhaps, one take and a bonus object lesson on the underrated ageability of Alsatian sylvaner. The ’99 is interesting enough that it comes home with us, the better to fool all and sundry in blind tasting after blind tasting.

Rolly Gassmann 2004 Terroir de Châteaux Forts (Alsace) – A blend…mostly gewürztraminer and auxerrois. Sweet corn and cream with a ripe, starchy spice coating that provides a sort of structure, plus a quartz-like minerality. I think this needs a year to two to integrate more completely, but it’s nice enough now.

Rolly Gassmann 2004 Pinot Blanc (Alsace) – Spiced soda water, grassy and crisp. This feels almost zingy or frothy (though not actually perlant), though as it builds and expands on the finish, thing smooth. Ultimately, it’s not all that interesting.

For a blended wine, the Châteaux Forts isn’t bad. It relies on two grapes that have fairly similar and compatible structures, rather than on a misguided attempt to brighten otherwise heavy gewürztraminer with underripe riesling; a tactic that’s employed at many other houses, and rarely to good effect. As for the pinot blanc…truthfully, Rolly Gassmann does better with its traditional blending partner auxerrois, as the following wines will demonstrate.

Rolly Gassmann 2002 Auxerrois (Alsace) – Dried pear with a thick, soft finish.

Rolly Gassmann 2002 Auxerrois Rotleibel de Rorschwihr (Alsace) – Lightly sweet spiced pear with an intense, drying finish; virtually the reverse of the previous wine’s organoleptic arc. Aspirational and very likely ageable.

Rolly Gassmann 2001 Auxerrois Moenchreben (Alsace) – Vividly spiced baked apple. This wine has incredible presence, but unfortunately, the finish is disappointingly short. The ’02 Rotleibel is on the way up; this is on the way down.

Rolly Gassmann 1997 Auxerrois Moenchreben (Alsace) – Completely given over to spice at this stage, with an incredibly creamy texture but still-present acidity lurking in the background. Wonderful, and fully mature.

Auxerrois always brings the spice – less-fruity pinot gris is a typical characterization – but it can easily decline into sugar and flab, which is one reason it’s so often paired with the thinner, less flavorful, but crisper pinot blanc. When encouraged towards balanced ripening, with an unblinking eye on the preservation of acidity, it’s capable of standalone quality…though perhaps not extended ageability.

Rolly Gassmann 2004 Riesling (Alsace) – Wet river stones with a very, very dry finish. Thirst-ravaging. Very impressive for a basic varietal bottling.

Rolly Gassmann 2001 Riesling “Réserve Millésime” (Alsace) – Light petrol skips across a thin palate, akin to Bas-Rhin riesling from a too-cold site. There’s good persistence, but I’m not sure what’s inside will be worth the wait.

Rolly Gassmann 2004 Riesling Silberberg (Alsace) – Chewy and leafy, with a sharp, piercing, almost needle-like malic acidity.

Rolly Gassmann 2003 Riesling Silberberg (Alsace) – Thinner than the above-notated ’04, with more leafiness, a keening mint aroma, and a short finish.

Rolly Gassmann 2000 Riesling Silberberg de Rorschwihr (Alsace) – Wet, ripe, balanced and juicy. Is this simply a result of the vintage, or do wines from this terroir always flesh out this much as they age? Some of the best rieslings of the region do exactly that, but they almost always have more identifiable intensity in their youth.

Rolly Gassmann 2001 Riesling Pflaenzerreben (Alsace) – Tonic water, limestone and slate, with mixed apples bouncing around. Stemmy to the point of bitterness of the finish, but intriguingly so. This is edgy and potentially controversial, but I think the quality’s there.

Rolly Gassmann 1999 Riesling Pflaenzerreben (Alsace) – Softer than the ’01, mostly due to elevated sugar. Short and weird, which wouldn’t be an uncommon showing for a ’99…but the minerality is also completely absent, which is a little surprising.

Rolly Gassmann 1996 Riesling Pflaenzerreben (Alsace) – Sulfurous, with acid lashing at a banana residue. Ungenerous, and showing signs of further thinning and drying in the future.

Rolly Gassmann 1997 Riesling Kappelweg “Vendanges Tardives” (Alsace) – Crushed flowers and almonds with a heavy, seemingly botrytis-influenced finish that flattens and then disappears. It’s decent enough now, but there’s not much of a future.

Rolly Gassmann 1997 Riesling Pflaenzerreben “Vendanges Tardives” (Alsace) – Crushed chalk and limestone with lemon rind and grapefruit. Balanced and smooth, with a long finish redolent of botrytis. Give this one another two, three years, then drink up.

The winery is so close to the hallowed riesling grounds of Ribeauvillé and Bergheim that one expects proportional quality, but in fact the rieslings here are the weakest of all the varietal subcategories. The problems could be site-related, or they could be that here – virtually alone among all the wines – are found the only real explorations of a drier, more austere, higher-acid style that’s prevalent elsewhere in this pocket of the northern Haut-Rhin. Normally, that would be a blessing for my palate, but I’m not sure Rolly Gassmann’s strength lies in dry wines. Certainly almost everything else (on the white side of things, at least) carries identifiable residual sugar, and usually to the wines’ benefit. Minor anecdotal evidence for this theory can be found in the late-harvest rieslings, which – though still not up to the quality of the rest of the portfolio – show more of the generosity and intensity required to carry riesling through its often screechily acidic youth.

Rolly Gassmann 2002 Pinot Noir Rorschwihr (Alsace) – Light and rough, with raspberry seeds and discarded apple cores soaking in a dried-out old wood stew. Definitely on the wan side.

Rolly Gassmann 2000 Pinot Noir Rorschwihr (Alsace) – Ripe red cherry and bark soda poured over earth, with graphite-textured tannin. The finish is sharp and thin, showing mostly the acidic side of highly-underripe strawberries. A nice wine, though it ends a little clipped, and while I think it might cohere with a little more time, it may just as easily turn shrill.

Rolly Gassmann 2001 Pinot Noir Rodern (Alsace) – Bigger than the two previous wines, with strawberry, apple blossom and elevated tannin. This would seem to be the first pinot with any aging potential, though one wouldn’t want to wait too long.

Rolly Gassmann 1997 Pinot Noir “Réserve Millésime” (Alsace) – Souring, with stinky, baked fruit predominating. This is, unfortunately, the fashion in which so many Alsatian pinots live out their final days…unless they’ve been overwooded, in which case the result is even more unpleasant.

Rolly Gassmann 1997 Pinot Noir Rodern (Alsace) – Spicy, quince-dominated mincemeat. Concentrated. Quite nice, and showing a deeper and broader “pinosity” than is normal for the region. Blame the vintage if you wish, but this is nicely done.

Rolly Gassmann 2003 Pinot Noir “Réserve Rolly Gassmann” (Alsace) – Dense vanilla and black cherry cola notes, with a thick, almost impenetrable finish. This is very nearly fashioned in the modern style – dare one muse that an Alsatian pinot can be internationalized? – but not in an offensive, over-the-top way. I don’t know how authentic it is, but there are (rare) times when artifice can qualitatively trump authenticity, and the 2003 vintage is as good a time as any to explore that notion…especially when the recalcitrant subject is pinot noir from Alsace.

It’s not often that one gets to try a serious lineup of reds in this region, and much less a largely terroir-designated one…but then again, in most cases that’s something for which to be profoundly thankful. Here’s a procession that, predictably, supports my theory that Alsatian pinot tends to be at its best in the very vintages that louse up other varieties…’97 and especially ’03, for example. Producers still have to avoid the temptation to polish and char the wine with barriques, but the raw materials from ultra-ripe vintages can provide the best opportunity to make something that is more than a regionally-favored curiosity. All that said, the best pinots from the region are almost always sparkling, and the second best tend to be pink.

Rolly Gassmann 2004 Muscat d’Alsace (Alsace) – Lime flowers and apple blossoms. Light and fun. I bet this would expand with food.

Rolly Gassmann 2004 Muscat Moenchreben (Alsace) – Mineral-driven and strongly akin to riesling, which Alsatian muscat can sometimes be from the right terroir. There’s structure and intensity here. In other words, it’s more ageable and “serious” than the previous wine, but also much less fun. That’s a tradeoff sometimes worth making for the sake of variety, but preferences will differ.

Rolly Gassmann 2003 Muscat “Vendanges Tardives” (Alsace) – Luscious, sweet pear and apricot with zingy spice accents. It’s thick, but with good, enlivening acidity. Lovely. VT muscat is a rare beast, mostly because it’s tough to get the grapes to hang that long without auxiliary damage, but when successful it’s completely grin-inducing. Laughter may even result, under certain circumstances.

Rolly Gassmann 1997 Muscat Moenchreben “Vendanges Tardives” (Alsace) – A funky nose followed by incredible waves of spice. Long and complex, with even more aging potential and more of everything than the 2003. The aroma is the only thing that gives pause; when a muscat goes funky, it’s usually a sign that it’s passing its drink-by date.

Rolly Gassmann 2003 Muscat Moenchreben “Sélection des Grains Nobles” (Alsace) – The rarest of all Alsatian wine types, capable of being produced no more than a handful of times per decade by some fanatic winemaker. And, usually, priced accordingly…but when it’s this good, it’s all worth it. Lusciously sweet apple of stunning intensity, with a finish of incredible length. And yet, for all this concentration and almost physical effort, the wine retains a beautiful precision. Heartbreakingly pretty and almost painfully lovely.

The “freak” vintages of 1997 and – even more so – 2003 have to be good for something, other than an improvement in the quality of the local pinot noir, and here are a few anecdotes in support of an alternative beneficiary. SGN muscat is one of those semi-legendary wines that people here talk about, but that almost no one has ever tasted. This may seem counter-intuitive because sweet muscat is so prevalent elsewhere, but a large majority of that is fortified and/or stopped fermentation product, not true ultra-late-harvest wine. And certainly, botrytized muscat remains the ultimate rarity, at least here; apparently, the necessary rot almost never sets in before the grapes shrivel and die, and when it does it’s almost never the good kind. But ultimately, what really sets these wines apart is the minerality and structure that comes with the terroir.

Rolly Gassmann 2004 Pinot Gris (Alsace) – Spiced pear, with nice acidity and a good overall balance. Textbook. In fact, this wine might be the illustration.

Rolly Gassmann 2004 Pinot Gris Rotleibel (Alsace) – Drying pear skin with a surplus of granitic minerality. Crisp. Nicely done, and mid-term ageable.

Rolly Gassmann 2002 Pinot Gris Brandhurst de Bergheim (Alsace) – Tight pear and apple wrapped with minerality and skin tannin. Though it’s an odd thing to say about Alsatian pinot gris, which tends towards flab even in the best of hands, this may be a touch over-structured. Time could help.

Rolly Gassmann 2001 Pinot Gris Rotleibel de Rorschwihr (Alsace) – Sweet, botrytis-like fruit with spice and soda, plus unmistakable chile de arbol on the finish…a character I’ve never even conceived, much less tasted, in pinot gris. Fascinating.

Rolly Gassmann 2002 Pinot Gris “Réserve Rolly Gassmann” (Alsace) – Intensely ripe, with Anjou pear joined by concentrated red cherry, red apple, and a forceful iron core. On the other hand, all this energy comes somewhat at the expense of the wine’s balance, with is tilted towards power and away from precision. This may age, but it’ll need careful watching. It’s certainly impressive.

Rolly Gassmann 2001 Pinot Gris “Vendanges Tardives” (Alsace) – Rubber on the nose, and then a semi-tropical fruit fiesta elsewhere: pear, banana, apricot, mango and papaya. Very smooth. A little more acidity would be welcome, but there’s a lot that’s good about this, especially for near-term drinking.

Rolly Gassmann 1997 Pinot Gris Rotleibel “Vendanges Tardives” (Alsace) – Gorgeous, sweet and spicy, with a long finish. A huge wine, full and generous but at a lovely intersection between its upfront, youthful fruit and the emergent structure underneath. It will certainly hold longer, gaining dried fruit and spice at the expense of generosity; in other words, further aging must be judged on the basis on personal preference.

Rolly Gassmann 2000 Pinot Gris Rorschwihr “Vendanges Tardives” (Alsace) – Sweet apple and iron, with hints of botrytis and a really seductive texture. Very ageable. This is an infant, but it’s going to be outstanding some day.

Rolly Gassmann 2003 Pinot Gris Brandhurst “Sélection des Grains Nobles” (Alsace) – Luscious. Ripe peach and strawberry/pear syrup dusted with five-spice powder form the incredibly sticky core of this lower-acid, somewhat slutty wine. It’s just stunning right now, and while I can’t help but think it will age a little while despite the problematic acidity (sugar and dry extract can carry these things a long way, based on past experience), there’s also a very slightly attenuated finish to deal with. So here’s the final call: near perfection now, but a dicey prospect for the future.

It stands to reason that an Alsatian domaine dealing in structured but off-dry wines would excel with pinot gris, and that’s borne out here. The core of its regionally varietal character – spiced pear, always – is intact, and there’s (usually) supporting acidity, but what’s most exciting about these wines is the range of terroir expressions. Some might argue – not without justification – that not all these terroirs are ideally left unblended. This is something that would be applicable to the whole Rolly Gassmann range, in fact. And maybe that would be a helpful criticism if the winery’s primary goal was merely an increase in its success percentage. But here’s why that won’t happen: they clearly enjoy making all these different wines. Some years will benefit certain terroirs and grapes, and others will direct their benefits elsewhere, and I think that uncertainty and difference are a great part of the appeal for the Gassmann family. But more on this point later.

Rolly Gassmann 2004 Gewurztraminer (Alsace) – Wet and thick, with peach skin and tepid cashew. Disappointing; even a basic gewurztraminer should have more oomph than this.

Rolly Gassmann 2001 Gewurztraminer (Alsace) – Sweet lychee and other spiced fruit. Simple and direct. As a basic varietal bottling, this is more successful than the 2004.

Rolly Gassmann 2002 Gewurztraminer Oberer Weingarten de Rorschwihr (Alsace) – Gewurztraminer isn’t usually a grape that allows its varietal characteristics to be subsumed, and yet here we have gravel, quartz, and rolling river rocks absolutely pummeling juicy-but-sweet lemon fruit. This is a gewurztraminer? It’s very, very tasty for those of us who like to drink our planet’s foundations in convenient bottled form, but it’s definitely out of the ordinary.

Rolly Gassmann 1999 Gewurztraminer (Alsace) – Quite sweet, showing peach, pear and lychee juice. Pretty and fun, though clearly for immediate drinking.

Rolly Gassmann 2001 Gewurztraminer Stegreben de Rorschwihr (Alsace) – Intense lychees with their skins (and skin tannins) intact. Complex, structured and long. Very good, with enough power to enjoy now, and the balance and integrity to age.

Rolly Gassmann 1999 Gewurztraminer Haguenau de Bergheim (Alsace) – Wet and a bit hollow, with sweet banana skin wrapped around nothingness. This is a fairly typical performance for gewurztraminer of this vintage, unfortunately.

Rolly Gassmann 1998 Gewurztraminer Keppelweg de Rorschwihr (Alsace) – Spiced pear, peach and lychee dressed with nut oils. The finish brings out an anise note. Intriguing, and absolutely delicious right now.

Rolly Gassmann 1999 Gewurztraminer de Rorschwihr “Vendanges Tardives” (Alsace) – Very crisp for a VT, but peachy-fruity as well. It’s a bit simple-minded, and I don’t really see it getting much better with age.

Rolly Gassmann 1996 Gewurztraminer Oberer Weingarten de Rorschwihr “Vendanges Tardives” (Alsace) – Heady, thick and frankly edging towards lurid, with lychee skins and an otherwise satiny texture. The finish is long and flawlessly balanced. Impressive.

Rolly Gassmann 1998 Gewurztraminer Stegreben de Rorschwihr “Vendanges Tardives” (Alsace) – Pure and balanced, with a blend of lychee, apple and peach buoyed by fantastic acidity. One to watch in the future, of which it should have great experience.

Rolly Gassmann 2001 Gewurztraminer Brandhurst “Vendanges Tardives” (Alsace) – Very structured, but while the apple-skin acidity and fruit are nicely balanced, the wine is massively, perhaps almost painfully, sweet. This could be epic perfection someday, or it could be a short-lived clunker. At this stage, it’s too hard to tell for sure, though I think I’d bet on the former.

Rolly Gassmann 1997 Gewurztraminer Brandhurst de Bergheim “Sélection des Grains Nobles” (Alsace) – Ungenerous, with a moldy character dominating. I wonder if it might be mildly corked, but no one else agrees with me. So it’s just bad, then, with rot having overtaken all else. Avoid.

Rolly Gassmann 1997 Gewurztraminer Oberer Weingarten de Rorschwihr “Sélection des Grains Nobles” (Alsace) – Incredibly intense, showing spiced lychee and apple-dominated acidity. Surprisingly balanced. Wow. This is, especially for a ’97, a masterwork.

Rolly Gassmann 1994 Gewurztraminer Stegreben de Rorschwihr “Sélection des Grains Nobles” “Cuvée Anne Marie” (Alsace) – Very, very, very sweet, showing those overdriven red fruit characteristics than can be coaxed from extremely ripe white grapes: red and Rainier cherries, mostly, though there’s also the expected lychees and thick botrytis influence. It’s extremely long, but there’s a very slightly worrisome rubber tang to the finish. In a young wine, I’d excuse it, but after a decade of age, I’d strongly consider drinking up.

Rolly Gassmann 1989 Gewurztraminer “Sélection des Grains Nobles” (Alsace) – Molten iron and steel. Fully-realized, integrating all the typically lush varietal characteristics into a metal-driven, complex whole. The finish is shortening, so I’d drink this one soon.

This is a fascinating collection of gewürztraminers. Some are just a little sweet, others are diabetic nightmares. Some show simple varietal purity, others bring in all sorts of complexing elements from terroir and/or age. Some are flawed, others are brilliant. But what stands out most is that over half of them are labeled as late-harvest wines. It could be successfully argued that this reflects the sugar-dominated disposition of the domaine, but I prefer an alternative explanation: these are wines that, at many other houses, would simply be the regular, non-VT releases…massive walls of unexpected and unwelcome sugar when opened at table. Labeling these wines vendanges tardives is – whether intended or not – a consumer-friendly gesture, one that helps clarify the morass of variably sweet wines that currently infect Alsace, to its commercial detriment. Such clarity from other producers would be most welcome.

So…53 wines. 53! Four hours (four hours!) after our arrival, my tongue, my palate, my nose and my mind are almost numb. It’s not the sheer number – I semi-regularly taste two or three times this many at big walk-around tastings – but the intensity, the sugar, and the concentration necessary to pick out subtle differences in a long procession of varietally-identical wines. The sugar and acid, especially, work together to bring a throbbing ache to my teeth. But the question is: did we learn anything? Well, with this many wines, it’s almost impossible not to.

In the face of all these site-labeled wines, an interesting fact can slip by even relatively experienced tasters: there are no grand crus here. This is partially explained by the fact that Rorschwihr possesses no such designated vineyards of its own (the nearest candidates are the Gloeckelberg in Rodern and the Altenberg de Bergheim and Kanzlerberg near Bergheim), but certainly this house has had the opportunity to purchase a few plots were they so inclined. That they haven’t speaks to a relentless regionalism…perhaps even a vinous xenophobia…and a stubborn determination to make the best from sites of which they have a deep, almost ancestral understanding.

With so many wines, there’s bound to be inconsistency…and there is. The only constants are residual sugar (except for the rieslings, in which is it either absent or not overt, and of course the pinot noirs) and the very difference that defines terroir-revelatory winemaking. Varietal integrity is usually respected, with the occasional outlier, but the qualities of these wines do indeed come from their sites. Nothing is happening in the cellar…or in the vineyard…to deform in an effort to achieve some sort of stylistic grail, a practice that is on display at more than a few famous wineries in the region. These are pure, honest expressions of grape and place. And if you don’t like a particular wine? They’ve got just a few more from which to choose…

As we purchase a half-dozen bottles and prepare to leave for a long-delayed lunch, I note the craziest thing of all in a morning filled with craziness of a most satisfactory nature: according to the price list, there are wines we missed. Well, save them for next time. If we start early enough, we should be able finish before midnight.

TN: VT, vini, vici

Trimbach 1998 Gewurztraminer “Vendanges Tardives” (Alsace) – Molten crystal and liquefied roses with a drizzle of aluminum and a fine, diamond-facet acidity. This is closing up. It’s less sweet than many regular Alsatian gewürztraminers these days, but it has much better balance than so many of its sticky younger brethren. Let it age. (3/07)

The Niedermorschwihr code (Alsace/Paris, pt. 4)

(The original version, with more photos, is here.)

28 March 2006 – Hunawihr, France

After a little too much wine the night before, we’re profoundly unsuccessful in getting up early. It’s a grey day, and not just aloft; the vineyards are mostly bare, the mountains are dark with needles and the occasional glimpse of spring snow, and the Rhine plain below us is hazy and murky. It is, in other words, a fine day for a hike.

We attempt to pick up a sentier viticole in Hunawihr, but after some frustration in our attempts to locate the actual route, we end up just strolling along muddy paths through vineyards south of the village. These skeletal slopes rise against the lower shoulders of the Vosges, occasionally ducking into a small grove of trees or split by an ancient rock fence, until they crest atop the precipitous decline of the Schoenenbourg, with descends directly into the fortifications of Riquewihr. The beautifully-preserved town below it is quieter than normal. I guess it’s not tourist season.

But Riquewihr holds few surprises for us anymore, and so we take a left turn towards Zellenberg, which perches on its hill in wind-buffeted isolation. It’s a town that often gets missed in the parade of tourists shuttling from Eguisheim and Kaysersberg, through Riquewihr, to Ribeauvillé, and the evidence of this is clear from its peaceful, restrained feel. There’s nothing showy about this village, but there is a bit of a show going on.

High above, atop a church steeple, is one of those wide-bottomed baskets one sees all over Alsace. And standing – plump, tall and preening in the midst of it – is a stork, here better-known as “l’oiseau d’Alsace.” It’s nesting season, and this unmistakable regional mascot is everywhere…craning over rooftops, prancing through vineyards, or gently soaring in circles. This is our first sighting, and we spend some time staring, leading a few passing locals to look up, shrug, and continue on their way.

On the outskirts of Zellenberg we manage to pick up a remnant of the marked sentier, which of course leads us right past a bustling cooperative cellar. The French may not always embrace marketing to the extent they should, but Alsace is…different. We end up back at our gîte for a lunch of leftovers and stinky cheese, plus a wine that’s not exactly our typical midday fare.

Faiveley 1995 Nuits St-Georges “1er Cru” Clos de la Maréchale (Burgundy) – Five-spice powder, black cherry and dark, tar-like earth. This is still fairly tannic, but there’s gorgeous fruit underneath. While further complexity is undoubtedly around the corner, I do wonder about it’s fruit/tannin balance. Still, it’s very appealing right now, albeit in a fairly primary way.

Niedermorschwihr, France

Boxler (78, rue des Trois-Epis) – Visits here are always exceedingly pleasant. The family is friendly and generous, the setting is peaceful, and the wines are almost distressingly extraordinary (especially the rieslings, which are among the very best in the world). And for currency-disadvantaged Americans, there’s yet another bonus: the wines are very inexpensive compared to their Stateside counterparts.

Boxler’s wines are, in the majority, rarely completely dry…though in some vintages the rieslings can present as very close to sugar-free. But unlike some of their regional brethren, who pursue overripeness and its resultant residual sugar at almost any cost, Boxler preserves both acidity and essential nervosity. There’s a poise to their wines that is simply not duplicated by many of the critically-hyped producers that infest the region, and there’s also great transparency to terroir.

Oh…the domaine has updated its labels. In the essentials they’re similar to the old labels, but with a cleaner, more modern look. I’m not entirely sure I like them, but they’re definitely clearer. The one thing that remains unclear to the average drinker, unfortunately, are the cuvée codes, which remain part of the “secret” Boxler lore. For those uninterested in heavy memorization, there are a few quick rules that can sort out most of the confusion:

* L is always present and irrelevant

* “JV” refers to young vines

* among the four “noble” grapes (riesling, pinot gris, gewurztraminer, muscat), other letter codes are sub-site designations within whatever grand cru is indicated on the label

* for other grapes, the letter codes still indicate site, but may also indicate that the grapes are from a grand cru vineyard (e.g. “B” on a pinot blanc)…a designation not allowed (by Alsace wine law) to be explicitly presented on labels

* the numbers indicate a specific cépage/site combination, except when they don’t, but aren’t otherwise relevant to the consumer as the grape varieties are (when applicable) indicated and the sites are elsewhere in the codes

There are a few niggling exceptions to this, of course. Thankfully, there has been a move to put some of the more important codes in a prominent label position. They’re still not truly helpful, since they’re not explained anywhere, but at least one doesn’t have to squint at the borders anymore.

Clear as mud? Good. On to the wines.

Boxler 2004 “Edelzwicker” L09 (Alsace) – A blend of sylvaner, pinot blanc and riesling (1/3 each)…which would seem to go against the original intent of “edel” as appended to “zwicker,” but whatever. It shows a sweet-smelling nose of ripe apple. Very nice, clean and simple.

Boxler 2004 Sylvaner L10 (Alsace) – Ripe green tomato and spice. Good acidity marks a long finish. This is from a site near Brand.

Boxler 2004 Pinot Blanc L20A (Alsace) – The “A” here refers to auxerrois, a typical blending component in wines labeled pinot blanc, and one that adds richness and weight. The wine is hugely spicy, with ripe pear and a zingy, almost bracing finish.

Boxler 2004 Pinot Blanc L20M (Alsace) – Very sweet, with a metallic core and a short finish. A little strange.

Boxler 2004 Riesling L20M (Alsace) – Very intense, with tons of dry extract and a long, marvelous, drying finish. In the midst of all this worthy structure are lightly sweet green apple skin and sharp, almost piercing acidity. And to think that this is just the “regular” riesling…

Boxler 2004 Riesling Sommerberg “JV” L30JV (Alsace) – From younger vines. The nose is vivid, with dried white flowers that turn to raw iron on the palate. The finish is incredibly long, but a bit edgy and cutting at the same time.

Boxler 2004 Riesling Brand L32 (Alsace) – A touch sulfur-marked right now, but pulsing and brooding underneath. It’s like licking a steel beam, with an endless, dry iron finish. Striking and majestic.

Boxler 2004 Riesling Brand “K” L32 (Alsace) – Sweeter on the nose than the previous wine, with peach around an intense core of minerality. And then, the explosion: molten iron and fire-hose water jets that simply vibrate with power and dry extract. Stunning.

Boxler 2004 Riesling Sommerberg L31 (Alsace) – Floral and silky, with spiced apricot. There’s mass and intensity here, with a juicy core and a lovely balance between fruit and firm structure, but it’s the satiny texture that eventually carries the day.

Boxler 2004 Riesling Sommerberg “E” L31E (Alsace) – Very metallic, but creamy nonetheless, showing very little fruit but almost overwhelming presence. This will be great, but that day is many years away; right now, there’s not much to enjoy.

Boxler 2003 Pinot Gris L50M (Alsace) – Lush but nervy, with intensely spiced pear, tamarind and lychee. Sulfur is in the mix, early. This reminds me a little bit of Bott-Geyl’s Sonnenglanz pinot gris, though this carries more acidity. An early-drinker, I think, but these wines have fooled me in the past.

Boxler 2003 Pinot Gris Brand L52 (Alsace) – Very sweet lychee, pear and peach. This wine is all about its incredibly ripe fruit, but there’s an earthy undertone as well. The finish is a little strange and disappointing, however, with canned pear and strongly tinny aroma developing late in the game. Plus, it’s a bit hot. A rare misstep, though it all makes sense when one notes the vintage. Of all the grapes with which it works, I think Boxler does least well with pinot gris…though in less perverse vintages they do much better than this.

Boxler 2003 Pinot Gris Sommerberg L51 (Alsace) – Shy on the nose, showing bright pear and creamy metallic notes on the midpalate. There’s a long finish, but I think this wine is yet another victim of its vintage…it’s flat and sort of lifeless. Wake up, little pinot gris, wake up!

Boxler 2003 Gewurztraminer Brand L62 (Alsace) – Banana, cashew and exotic roses around a core of dark metal, with a gelatinous texture that resolves to sinuosity on the long finish. It’s sweet, but it’s balanced (in the context of gewurztraminer), and a rare success from the vintage.

Boxler 2004 Gewurztraminer Brand L62 (Alsace) – More metallic than the ’03, with a powdery texture that turns stingingly particulate on the finish. Leafy and very floral, perhaps almost florid. Right now I prefer the 2003 for its open lusciousness, but I think this one will age into something a little more socially acceptable.

Boxler 2004 Riesling Sommerberg “Vendanges Tardives” LRVT00D (Alsace) – Aromatically quite dry, which fails to prepare one for the stunning intensity of the palate. Dried apples dominate. As poised as it is forceful, this is a hammer-blow to the palate, but one delivered with precision and balance. Amazing.

Boxler 2004 Riesling Sommerberg “Vendanges Tardives” “Cuvée Zacharie” LRVT00D (Alsace) – Flawless. Balanced sweetness and acidity take a backseat to a blend of metals and minerals that devolve to stones and gravel on the finish. Almost breathtaking in its restrained power.

Boxler 1999 Pinot Gris Brand “Vendanges Tardives” LVTB9911 (Alsace) – Very sweet, with a gorgeous pear-dominated nose and palate. Extremely vivid. There’s surprising balance for such a late-harvest wine, and the long finish coupled with the other indicators suggests that it’s nowhere near the end of its life, but rather is much closer to its beginning. I’d give it another decade, at least.

Ribeauvillé, France

Au Relais des Ménétriers (10, avenue Général de Gaulle) – A quiet, confident, comforting restaurant on the main southern route into Ribeauvillé. The menu is simple, with modern updates on the themes of the Alsatian classics and a few specials. The wine list is short and locally-dominated.

One can hardly eat in Alsace and avoid foie gras (or if one can, one shouldn’t), and so I start with a nicely-seared slice of lobe accompanied by grapes, then follow with a pleasant and well-seasoned monkfish filet served with spinach, morels and croutons. It’s a light dish, with all of the elements suggesting “no, you go first,” but it works in an elegant, understated fashion (with the caveat that I’m not sure monkfish can ever really be “elegant”). There’s also a terrific homemade bread with a floury exterior, something that’s being pushed out by dry, tasteless industrial loafs at too many restaurants. For dessert, I spoon into a very nice “römertopf” of strawberries, rhubarb and butter with strawberry ice cream. No, really. Butter. It works, but then I’ve been accused of liking dairy a little more than is perhaps good for me.

F. Schwach Crémant d’Alsace (Alsace) – Simple, dry and inoffensive.

F. Schwach 2003 Muscat “Cuvée Réservée” (Alsace) – Ripe and floral, showing white apricot and succulent sweetness on the finish. A little clumsy, but that’s the year.

Mallo 2001 Riesling Rosacker “Vieilles Vignes” (Alsace) – Soft and a touch hollow, with a light sweetness covering a wine that is all stones, gravel and salt. There’s some hints of early oxidation as well, including a very advanced color. I wonder if it might not be a victim of cork failure, but a second bottle procured by the concerned proprietress produces the same results. Surprising. Mallo’s not a top producer, but they’re usually better than this. And the wine’s not bad, it’s just tired.

Windholtz Eau-de-Vie Baie de Houx (Alsace) – Holly-berry distillate. It’s like drinking a Christmas tree, with pine sap and sharp needles in abundance. It’s different, to be sure.

TN: Drawing a Blanck

Blanck 2002 Gewurztraminer Altenbourg (Alsace) – Completely closed, to the point where it almost seems corked. At least an hour of air (decanting a gewurztraminer!) is necessary to bring it out, but it still doesn’t show the full spectrum of goodness that it carried in its youth. There’s a dry minerality underneath a juicy, pineapple and peach juice…thick but not sticky, despite a very mild amount of sweetness…and this minerality, along with almost surprising acidity, really comes to the fore on the finish. It’s a very good wine in resentful stasis, and needs some time to re-emerge. Five years, at least. (3/07)

TN: Old Fogarty

Fogarty 2004 Gewürztraminer (Monterey) – Still one of the best U.S. gewürztraminers, with all the lush peach/lychee/cashew oil aromas one would want, a thick texture with mild residual sugar, and a finish that wavers between clean and pleasurably sticky. It’s not complex, but it’s solidly made. (3/07)

TN: Gewurz gewurz

Trimbach 2001 Gewurztraminer (Alsace) – Balanced but closed, with firm acidity and a core of molten aluminum surrounded by peach pit, cashew, pork rind and bitter lychee. Structured and pure, with any residual sugar dominated by other elements, and due for a big comeback in a few years. (12/06)

Trimbach 2003 Gewurztraminer (Alsace) – It looks like gewürztraminer. It smells like gewürztraminer (albeit through gauze). It tastes like gewürztraminer paste. Another victim of 2003. (12/06)

TN: Kitchen Zinck

Zinck 2001 Gewurztraminer Pfersigberg “Grand Cru” (Alsace) – There’s a piercing quality to this producer’s Pfersigbergs that doesn’t block one bit of gewurztraminer’s pork-bottomed hedonism; it’s partially good, strong acidity, but also a slicing, diamond-sharpened minerality. This was very good young, but it’s getting better, and the best years of all are unquestionably ahead of it. (12/06)

TN: Two more Trimbachs

Trimbach 2000 Gewurztraminer (Alsace) – Stone fruit jerky, tending towards slight bitterness and showing less acidity than one might prefer. It’s in a good place right now, riding a line between primary fruit and mature gewurztraminery characteristics, and the lack of acid means it probably won’t continue to develop in salutary ways. So drink up. (12/06)

Trimbach 1998 Riesling (Alsace) – Molten iron filings with a wet, slate-like character chunked up by something a little more organic-earthy…edging towards, but not actually reaching, the mushroom family. Fully mature, balanced, and really, really nice. (12/06)

TN: Five Trimbachs (not all of them white)

Trimbach 2002 Pinot Gris “Réserve” (Alsace) – Better and brighter than the last few vintages, with a light-filled crystalline aspect sparkling amidst ripe pear. There’s also a significant drying tone to the finish. Restrained and pure. (11/06)

Trimbach 2003 Riesling “Cuvée Frédéric Émile” (Alsace) – This announces itself rather sharply, but fails to deliver on its volume, except with a rather formless weight. Aromatically, the wine is far superior to, say, the contextually blowsy 1997 in that it delivers a fairly classic CFE profile of molten iron and shattered malic ice with salted apple, but structurally the wine is very reminiscent of a big Austrian riesling opened and consumed without aging or aeration: weight, but not enough presence. The hope that this, like the 1997, will provide good near-term drinking while waiting for better vintages to develop is, I’m afraid, misguided. (11/06)

Trimbach 2000 Gewurztraminer “Cuvée des Seigneurs de Ribeaupierre” (Alsace) – Classic and true to type, with significant salty minerality underneath vivid but balanced lychee dust, caramelized cashew and bright peach/pear aromas. There’s pretty good acidity, as well. Not a genre-defining gewurztraminer, but eminently typical for this house, and showing all the proper elements for a good decade’s aging. (11/06)

Trimbach 1997 Pinot Noir “Réserve Personnelle” (Alsace) – An adventurous choice. This is certainly the best pinot noir I’ve tasted from Trimbach. If that sounds like qualified praise, it is; the wine has good weight, a lot of worthy varietal characteristics (earthy cherry and autumn leaves, mostly, though there’s some wet morel as well), and has held up and developed well enough. However, there is – and there’s no mistaking it – the dreaded “hot dog” aroma that so often afflicts Alsace pinot noir. I’m not sure what the problem is – soil, clones, winemaking – but it seems that whenever a pinot noir rises above the biting rosé-like horde, it stands a better-than-average chance of turning to fermented frankfurter. It’s strange. (11/06)

Trimbach 2000 Gewurztraminer “Vendanges Tardives” (Alsace) – Trimbach’s late-harvest gewurztraminers are as solidly excellent as their rieslings, though they rarely reach the exalted heights of those wines. This is no exception: striking ripe stone fruit and lychee are paired with bright, freshening acidity and a solid, sun-drenched mineral core. The sweetness is significant, yet the wine’s structure is such that any trace of “stickiness” is thoroughly absent. Drink it now, drink it in ten years, drink it in twenty…it’ll be beautiful at any age. (11/06)

TN: Wines on the wing (New Zealand, pt. 34)

(The original version, with many more photos, is here.)

Architecture aloft

The roof takes flight, curving against the breeze and rising gracefully skyward. Its strong lines are reflected in a nearby pool as it soars and swoops over the vines that cover the valley floor, tracing a graceful curve along its length that runs from sun to shadow, and then back again.

Or rather, it would do all those things if it weren’t bolted to the structure underneath.

There’s been much architectural hoo-hah over the new winemaking and visitors’ facility at Peregrine, and on both first and last view the chatter is richly deserved; this is a dramatic and original statement. It works in this otherwise wholly natural setting for three reasons: 1) it is, frankly, a beautiful structure, 2) it’s both low enough to the ground and set back far enough from the road, behind a protective veil of trees and low slopes, that it doesn’t overtly intrude on the surrounding landscape, and 3) it is of a piece with the carefully restructured grounds (which incorporate a pond, a more rustic and traditional banquet facility, and walkways), showing sensitivity to the harmonies and rhythms of nature. Plus, the peregrine falcons on which the wing-like roof structure is based do indeed visit the vineyards from time to time.

The curved steel and Duralite canopy shades a two-level concrete facility that accommodates the needs of both arriving grapes and inquisitive tourists, and it’s to the latter that I walk, gaping and marveling at the surroundings. But the tasting room itself cannot be ignored, either; a shadowy chamber that nonetheless seems partially constructed of light, with a thick wall of glass separating tasters from a precise and martial array of barrels in the winery’s aging facility. It’s no less beautiful than the exterior, and I begin to worry that – as with so many California wineries – more attention is being paid to the visuals and externalities than to the wine that provides the alleged raison d’être for all this man-made beauty.

Another source of worry: Peregrine has not experienced much winemaking continuity in its relatively brief history, having built their name under one regime, then experiencing a minor explosion in notoriety under the brief tenure of the very high-profile Michelle Richardson (ex-Villa Maria), a talented and fiery personality who has since left for her own venture. I’ve tasted, and liked, a few Peregrine wines in the States, but I approach their current lineup with a measure of trepidation, wondering if their obvious pretensions toward quality will be maintained by the wines, given the discontinuities in the cellar and all the money represented by its physical presence. (Co-founder Greg Hay is the principal constant, having remained attached to the project since its beginnings as yet another cooperative growers’ venture.)

Peregrine offers wine under three different labels: the main-line estate products (Peregrine), a lineup of “second” wines called Saddleback, (that carry neither the reduced quality nor, frankly, the usual price reduction of a typical secondary label), and a premium cuvée called Wentworth, which hearkens back to the original name for the winery.

Quicker than a glass of light

Rather remarkably, Peregrine offers nearly everything they have in stock for tasting, for free and to all comers. I’m not sure this is economically sustainable given the winery’s proximity to bustling Queenstown, but it’s a fine gesture…especially as it puts a good deal of what turns out to be quite high-quality wine into the glasses of a lot of previously-unsuspecting people. This is an unquestioned good.

My tasting experience is guided by a friendly young man (who also turns out to be a freelance photographer) that shows signs of being scatterbrained and inefficient when I first arrive, but easily rises to the occasion as more and more visitors populate the glowing bar behind which he stands. He’s able to answer all my (admittedly not particularly technical) questions with ease, and leads me through the wines as quickly as can be expected given a multitude of other customers.

Peregrine 2003 Riesling (Central Otago) – Intense, showing steel, grapefruit and lime leaves with an almost electric intensity on the midpalate. Finishes extremely dry and long. Marvelous riesling, with a good future ahead of it.

Peregrine 2004 “Rastasburn” Riesling (Central Otago) – Despite the geographic name, Rastasburn is here meant to indicate a stylistic shift towards the off-dry. Which it is, showing lime, mixed apples and a lush, shattered minerality that pulses towards the full-bodied, then retreats to permit a crisp, dry and tingly finish. It’s a bit shorter than the regular ’03 riesling, but very nice nonetheless.

Peregrine 2004 Sauvignon Blanc (Marlborough) – This is usually sourced from Central Otago fruit, but in 2004 the quality…and more importantly, the quantity…just wasn’t there, and so alternate sources had to be found. I regret not being able to taste the wine in its typical form, but this is hardly a chore: gooseberry and grass, yes, but also a mineral-driven liquidity on the midpalate and finish…something not often found in fruit-focused Marlborough. The only flaw is a somewhat sticky texture, but it’s forgivable. A nice wine.

Peregrine 2004 Pinot Gris (Central Otago) – Pinot gris is, in many ways, the chardonnay of New Zealand: mindlessly planted everywhere and producing wines of endless and anonymous tedium, almost without exception. Thankfully, “almost” is the correct term (though it would do no harm to the New Zealand wine industry to grub up 75% of the nation’s pinot gris vines), and this is one of the exceptions. Yeasty and thickly-textured (while the wine is matured in 100% stainless steel, lees stirring adds weight and complexity), but brightened with zingy acidity, showing grapefruit rind and pear with a long, dry finish that shows hints of further complexities to come. A marvelous wine with medium-term aging potential.

Peregrine 2004 Gewürztraminer (Central Otago) – Lychee and cashew oil form a fully ripe and quite phenolic nose, with a lovely, elegant complexity on the palate. It’s very light for gewürztraminer (those desiring more weight will want to look to the North Island’s Gisborne region), but nice in that idiom.

Saddleback 2003 Chardonnay (Central Otago) – 100% malolactic fermentation, 30% matured in French oak. Intense stone fruit (mostly apricot), fig, nut oil and nutmeg with a light touch of wood and a smooth, balanced aspect. A pleasant, good-quality chardonnay with a bit of aging potential but of no particularly unique distinction…which is, after, the persistent problem with this grape from anything other than the most remarkable terroirs. This, though, is a subjective complaint; the wine is perfectly nice.

Saddleback 2004 Chardonnay (Marlborough) – As with the sauvignon blanc, acceptable fruit for this wine was simply not available locally. The nose is tighter, flatter and leafier than the ’03, with banana skin and a long, growing intensity on the palate and a zippy, sorbet-like finish braced with fine acidity. This is more structured and probably longer-aging than the ’03, and certainly less overtly marked by oak, but objectively it’s probably less pleasurable. People will choose based on their perceptions of what constitutes quality in a chardonnay.

Peregrine 2004 Rosé (Central Otago) – A pink pinot (not saignée), juicy and off-dry with simplistic strawberry and floral components. Just…eh.

Saddleback 2003 Pinot Noir (Central Otago) – Light plum, strawberry blossom and red cherry, with sweeter plum notes emerging on the finish. Almost nice, but slightly stemmy, unfinished and underripe. This should be better.

Peregrine 2003 Pinot Noir (Central Otago) – Earth, dark plum and strawberry – a big-fruited wine with just a touch of syrup on the midpalate – given heft and direction by a brooding (yet crisp) structure so well-integrated that it almost escapes notice. Everything expands towards a beautiful finish; this is a lovely wine, with elegance and polish, and fine aging potential (though it will be very hard to avoid in the interim).

The swirling afterglow

These are, despite my initial misgivings, mostly extraordinary wines that show intensity, elegance and vision…not to mention high-quality fruit, handled well and relatively unobtrusively. There’s power here, but also class and maturity, something achieved by few other wineries in the Central Otago. This is an exciting winery, and one to watch very closely, for it is already the unquestioned star of the Gibbston sub-region. And after all, nothing flies higher than a star.

TN: Springvale forward (New Zealand, pt. 33)

(The original version, with more photos, is here.)

The road pointlessly taken

According to my at-hand references, only three wineries in the entire Clyde/Alexandra area are open for drop-in tasting. Having just left the best-known of the triad, full of unresolved gewürztraminer must and wacky theories about Otago cabernet, I leave the eroding forests of rock formations behind and travel a long, straight dirt road across a flat plain to number two: William Hill.

Make that two wineries open for drop-in tasting, for William Hill is – despite its quite clear exterior signage to the contrary – closed to visitors. There’s even a short bus full of disappointed wine tourists pulling out of the driveway as I arrive, and only the shouts of a vineyard worker alert me to the fact that the locked and darkened tasting room is not that way by accident. He has no explanation to offer, either, aside from a bewildered shrug. I return his shrug in kind, and move on.

Woodless and fancy free

Springvale Estate (Dunstan Rd., Alexandra), just a short distance away, is most definitely open, and the expansive tasting room is surrounded by gardens and tables currently undergoing a pre-lunch setup. I arrive just early enough to get the attention I need before lunching tourists (and, by appearances, quite a few locals) arrive in force, because the staff is unquestionably spread a bit thin once that occurs. Nonetheless, my welcome is friendly, and I’m offered a table and an organized flight of wines to study at my leisure, rather than fighting the growing crowds at the tasting bar/lunch counter.

Springvale Estate 2001 “Unoaked” Chardonnay (Central Otago) – Strong apricot – and perhaps very slightly botrytized? – aromas with white plum and peach. There’s a nice core of fruit here, and while the wine is perhaps a touch sweet, it’s got good structure, length and balance. Pretty and fun…and, it turns out, the best wine I’ll taste.

Springvale Estate 2001 “Oaked” Chardonnay (Central Otago) – A touch of charred lemon and apple shrinks from intrusive oak on the nose. The effect of the wood on the palate, however, is tactile rather than organoleptic, as it flattens out the spectrum, hides the spiced (and dried) orange fruit, and abrades the finish to something tannic and dull. It’s long, but things are neither as integrated nor as pleasant as they should be, and the oak ultimately damages the wine more than it adds to its complexity.

Springvale Estate 2003 Sauvignon Blanc (Central Otago) – A shy nose, with green pepper and grass on the palate, and a tart, green finish: all the unwelcome signs of underripe sauvignon. I’ve said it before and I’ll likely say it again: Otago sauvignon may not be the best idea…which is not to say that it can’t be done well (as, for instance, at Carrick), only that the chances seem slimmer than normal. Not everyone in New Zealand is honor-bound to produce sauvignon blanc, a fact that sometimes seems to be lost on certain bottom line-focused wineries.

Springvale Estate 2003 Gewürztraminer (Central Otago) – Light rose petal, lychee skin, dried apricot pit and almond form an enticing nose that falls completely away on the palate and that provide absolutely no finish whatsoever. Initially pleasant, but ultimately disappointing.

Springvale Estate 2002 Pinot Noir (Central Otago) – Gentle plum and baked strawberry turn quickly bizarre, with bark, green olive sourness, and a sandy texture. This wine is light to the point of being watery, both insubstantial and insufficiently aromatic, and is shot through with a nasty green streak. No good.

Springvale Estate 2001 Pinot Noir (Central Otago) – Dirty plum, raspberry, rotten strawberry and more of that green olive note, with tarry tannins and a syrupy texture that adds to an impression that the remaining fruit in this wine is starting to turn to liqueur. This is “better” than the 2002 only in the academic sense, and I’d avoid either version.

Like Mt. Difficulty, this is a cooperative venture between vineyard owners. But to an even greater extent than that Bannockburn winery, it seems that grape quality is an issue…which makes me wonder how an equal partnership between otherwise competing growers can effectively encourage viticultural improvements. It’s not as if the threat to turn to other grape sources would be an effective one. Also of concern, or at least questionable: the age of these wines. Tasted in March of 2005, only the sauvignon and gewürztraminer are of what other wineries would call the current vintage, and it’s not as if the remaining products are Fromm-like and in need of extra aging to shed their youthful ferocity. One wonders about the reasons for this delayed presentation, because it certainly doesn’t appear to benefit the wines.

Ultimately, Springvale Estate is a pleasant place to visit and lunch (though I can’t vouch for the food, which I do not try), and their unoaked chardonnay would appear to have the qualities necessary for a nice picnic wine, but there’s a lot of work to do here…mostly in the vineyard, but perhaps also in the cellar.

Driving the friendly skies

The drive back to Cromwell, and then towards Queenstown, is done during some sort of midday lull, and as traffic is virtually nonexistent, I speed homeward at an unforeseen pace. Thus, I’ve got a little extra time before I’m scheduled to meet Theresa, so I endeavor to sneak in a little bonus tasting back in the Gibbston Valley. A tasting where I am, quite literally, taken under someone’s wing.

Disclosure: tasting fee is waived.

TN: A dam shame (New Zealand, pt. 32)

(The original, with more photos, is here.)

Separate ways, worlds apart

Back when this voyage was still in the planning stages, I’d assumed that, from time to time, Theresa and I would want to do different things. Her capacity for endless wine tasting doesn’t quite match mine, and I also figured she’d desire a few restorative days in between all of our rushing to and fro across the New Zealand landscape.

So it’s a bit of a surprise, just a few days shy of a month into this venture, that today is the first (and, it turns out, only) day we’ll pursue separate activities. Theresa’s going to nap, wander the streets of Queenstown, and spend a few refreshing hours at a local spa, while I’m taking the car to the last of the Central Otago wine regions for a little drop-in tasting.

With a half-dozen drives under one’s belt, the Queenstown-Cromwell road seems less twisty and precarious than it does at first glance. This is actually a slightly dangerous notion, for the road retains all of its perilous edge-of-danger aspects despite the familiarity, but it’s a clear morning and there are few cars on the road, which makes the drive a relative breeze. At Cromwell, the road angles south along the banks of the Clutha, straightening and flattening along the dramatic but rather harsh cut of the Cromwell Gorge. What seems like scant minutes later, the road descends past a mighty dam and drops into the rich valley in which nestle the towns of Clyde and Alexandra.

The layout of the towns – modern suburban grids in uniform two-story sprawl – seems somehow out of place in this otherwise remote landscape. Or perhaps moonscape would be a better term, for outside the (no doubt heavily manicured) valley, the earth is about as hostile an environment for agriculture as one can imagine (short of a complete lack of soil): tussock-covered mountains meet rolling fields and hills covered with craggy outcroppings, shelves, and tables; a forbidding and borderline unusable landscape that…inevitably…formed one of the major open sets for The Lord of the Rings.

It figures that someone would try to grow grapes here.

Sugar, sugar

In truth, the rocky slopes around Alexandra aren’t any worse than some of the great European vineyards…Hermitage and Châteauneuf-du-Pâpe come immediately to mind…though this is not to say that the wines from this region even vaguely compare to those exalted appellations. In the first place, it would appear that the majority of vines are planted not on the difficult slopes, but rather on the flat and fertile plains; rarely a recipe for top-quality wine. Second, there seems to be a lot of haphazard experimentation and, it must be said, pervasive underfunding, especially in comparison to the more developed vineyards and wineries around Bannockburn, Cromwell, and the Gibbston Valley. The end result is that, unfortunately, the wines of the region don’t quite meet the standards being set by the rest of the Central Otago.

My first stop is at Black Ridge, the Central Otago’s first commercial vineyard…though this presupposes that I’ll ever be able to find the place. The map in Michael Cooper’s Atlas sends me on a long but visually captivating detour through the area’s rocky hinterlands, but eventually I pull into the rather dramatic hollow in which the winery sits…on the heels of a small group of youthful Americans. What, exactly, are those odds?

The proprietor is somewhere between goofy and eccentric (in a good way), but his passion can’t be denied, and we delve into a haphazard tasting while I listen to his ramblings…some of which are sensible, others of which are rather the opposite. As for the wines themselves, they’re all over the qualitative map.

Black Ridge 2002 Riesling (Central Otago) – Diesel and mineral with pear skin, wet leaves and a metallic edge; the latter is usually welcome in a riesling, but here it’s a little bit too jarring. The finish is very dry, despite eight grams of residual sugar. Good for short-term drinking, but I don’t like its preparation for the longer haul.

Black Ridge 2003 Chardonnay (Central Otago) – Peach and stone fruit with a big impact, and a decent enough balance that persists until the onset of an oily-textured, low-acid finish that eventually dries out all the goop. It’s quite flavorful, but more akin to a good fruit wine than a chardonnay.

Black Ridge 2004 “Otago Gold” (Central Otago) – A blend of breidecker, riesling, gewürztraminer and chardonnay, carrying fifteen grams of residual sugar. (What’s breidecker, you ask? A müller-thurgau/chancellor cross, which should fill absolutely no one with anticipation. Further, blends with gewürztraminer are rarely anything more than thinned gewürztraminer.) There’s fusel oil and grapefruit, but only a dab of each, and otherwise this wine is sweet, simple fun that’s completely absent anything of interest or complexity. The proprietor suggests serving it over ice (“you keep on sipping until the ice is dissolved”), which seems as good a use as any: the pastis of the Central Otago.

Black Ridge 2004 Gewürztraminer (Central Otago) – My second attempt at this wine, and unfortunately it’s only slightly changed: oily lychee, roses and spiced orange are completely overwhelmed by fat, even blowsy residual sugar (19 grams) and a flabby midpalate. The finish is much better, showing long and luscious, but it’s a shame what one has to go through to get there. This is a cocktail wine, at best.

Black Ridge 2003 Gewürztraminer “Late Harvest” (Central Otago) – 20 grams of residual sugar…just one gram more than the regular ’04 gewürztraminer…but overall a much more solid wine, which indicates the problem at Black Ridge is likely to be insufficient physiological ripeness rather than regular old hang time; a way must be found to mitigate intrusive sugars while urging on the grapes’ aromatics and structural elements to some harmonious end. This wine, which is no more overtly sweet than the basic bottling, shows nice spiced apple and roses with a bitter-sour lychee, pear and peach midpalate that manages to hold into the finish. There’s good intensity here, and the only major flaw is…well, to be indelicate, a sort of “foot cheese” aroma that emerges as the wine warms in the glass. Still, if one can ignore this characteristic, there’s at least potential here.

Black Ridge “Conroy’s” 2004 Pinot Noir (Central Otago) – An inexpensive wine meant to be an early- and easy-drinking pinot, except that it’s a little too easy. It’s juicy, perhaps even akin to a slightly flat soda, with light leafy flowers and a short finish. The still-bound CO₂ eventually becomes a touch off-putting, but with enough chill this could be a decent quaffer on a hot summer day.

Black Ridge 2003 Pinot Noir (Central Otago) – Sour cherry on the nose, which expands to fuller, riper and fleshier plum, orange peel and earth aromas on the palate. There’s good structure, balance and length here, but the wine persistently tends towards tartness, and one wonders if the fruit will outlast the acidity.

Black Ridge 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon (Central Otago) – OK, this is the second cabernet sauvignon I’ve tasted from this region (the first was part of a blend at Olssens), and I’m a little baffled at the enthusiasm for the experiment. OK, sure, maybe it’s possible to get cabernet ripe here, in one vintage or another, but the world needs another marginal cabernet about as much as it needs another breidecker. This one shows bell pepper, blackberry, black pepper and dark cherry with good structure, but despite the proprietor’s tremendous enthusiasm it’s just not all that interesting. It’s decent enough, and structured, and will age with all the qualities and problems it currently possesses, but there’s just no call for this wine, and no real purpose in its making other than to prove that it can (very occasionally) be done.

TN: The rusty belt (New Zealand, pt. 31)

The luxurious colon

Just what exactly is “luxury muesli,” anyway? 24-carat gold nuggets amidst one’s rolled oats? Or does it make your…no, wait, on second thought, never mind. I’ve felt some pushback from musing on muesli’s digestive effects in the past, and perhaps the world isn’t truly ready for such ruminations. (And maybe they feel the same about unsavory digestive puns. You know, the kind that leave a bad taste in one’s mouth.)

Anyway…it’s “luxury muesli” in our bowls this morning, and our bodies are virtually brimming with whole grains and crunchy earth-mother goodness. We’ll need it.

The mirrored crown

In a country full of ascendant byways, “the country’s highest sealed road” is bound to be quite something. And indeed, the breathtakingly beautiful and precarious trip from Queenstown and over the Crown Range is just that, flitting its way dramatically upward through golden mountain slopes tufted with tussock. It eventually flattens, shooting relatively straight along the Cardrona River to emerge high above Wanaka, a small but popular town draped across the southern tip of its majestic alpine lake. It’s a good thing the road’s downhill, too, because we’re running on fumes by the time we reach civilization. (Note to selves: next time, gas up before leaving Queenstown, because there’s nothing along the way.)

We’d been to Wanaka before, though only for a few minutes on a seemingly endless drive to the glacial wilds of the West Coast, and had greatly admired something it shared with its nearby “sister lake” Hawea: an almost impossible sky-tinted blue, like something out of an unlikely but riveting painting of the ideal mountain pond. Today, it’s not quite that blue – whether due to season, sun angle, or mineral content we can’t tell – but it’s hardly less beautiful for it. We park near the beach, and emerge into a sun-warmed (but wind-cooled) paradise surrounded on three sides by towering mountains. Wanaka is vacation town for Kiwis and tourists alike, and buzzes with activities and the planning thereof. We stroll along the beach to shaded, calmer groves of trees on the lake’s southwestern corner, then head north along the Waterfall Creek path for a gently pretty, leisurely stroll through trees, shrubs, beaches and grapevines…that, eventually, turns a little boring. What cynical and world-weary hikers we’ve become in such a short time!

Let napping dogs lie

Back to the car we go, to retrace our steps via a road only a few dozen meters from our walking path, leading us to the dramatic entrance to Rippon, a strong candidate for the world’s most beautifully-situated winery. Vines descend in orderly rows towards the lake, which reflects both the sky and the snow-capped mountain peaks in mirrored glass. It’s awe-inspiring. (linked image ©Gilbert van Reenan, Clean Green Images)

Unfortunately, the wines do not live up to the view.

(Continued here, with tasting notes and many, many more photos.)

TN: Still more old notes

Bantlin “Domaine Les Portes” 2004 Vin de Pays des Côtes Catalanes Muscat Sec “fin de la nuit” (Roussillon) – Faded flowers and dried fruit fading into an oxidative summer sunset. Yet there’s something intriguing about this wine, which keeps enticing me back for sip after sip, until the liquid’s gone. How’d that happen? (9/06)

Sauzet 1998 Saint-Romain (Burgundy) – Sweet-sour grapefruit with a bit of sweaty acridity, good but slightly disjointed crispness, and a light sheen of mature butter. It gains some crisp, citrusy spice with extended aeration. A pretty good, light, lower-tier white Burgundy at full maturity. (9/06)

d’Angerville 1994 Volnay (Burgundy) – Harshly tannic at first, but this slowly fades, giving way to a nice mélange of well-aged red fruit and crumbled autumn leaves fallen on a mossy ground, with the morning’s frost rising as steam from wet, aromatic earth. This is a really lovely wine, but it requires time to present itself. (9/06)

Trimbach 1989 Gewurztraminer “Sélection des Grains Nobles” (Alsace) – From 375 ml. Not even close to ready, with lychee and peach fruit only mildly spiced (though heavily sweetened), and showing almost none of the expected meat-like characteristics that come with aged versions of this grape. A dining companion notes an emergent bitterness, which is typical for late-harvested gewurztraminer; he dislikes it, while I find it a necessary balancing element in the wine’s sugar-dominated structure. Way, way too young, but potentially very nice. However, if you’re insistent on opening something, the ’89 VT is drinking much better right now. (9/06)

TN: Pink grapes

Julien “Château Villerambert Julien” 2005 Minervois Rosé (Languedoc) – Freshly-crushed raspberries and strawberries with a particulate graphite mid-tone. Lovely. (11/06)

Trimbach 2000 Gewurztraminer (Alsace) – Lasting rather than developing, with smoked pork slightly emergent from otherwise straight-ahead peach, lychee and apricot gelatin drizzled with cashew oil. Varietally pure, a bit fat, and mostly just sitting there…even as six year old négociant juice. It’s a perfectly pleasant gewurztraminer, but there seems to be no point in holding it any longer. (11/06)