Wine Jabber

Thanksgiving

The holiday rolls around with alarming quickness. I have a few invites, but decide to join my friends MB & C, who live two blocks away. Walking just seems like a good idea today.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It doesn’t have the crass commercialism of Christmas, the jingoism of Independence Day, the boorish drunkenness of New Year’s, nor the treacly sentiments of Valentine’s. I like the idea of simply sharing a meal and just giving thanks. I need to remember to just do that more often.

Mostly, when I think about it, I’m thankful for my friends. If there’s one thing I want to be known for, it’s for being a good friend. I’m semi-estranged from parts of my family, so I never see them in big gatherings – I only visit with particular individuals. Friends are my family, and I’m simply thankful for the deep and lasting friendships I’ve been able to build. Was it Aristotle who said (Nichomachean Ethics? not sure) the best thing about a well-lived life was the friendships that come from it. For me, friendships are a responsibility – not something to be taken lightly or for granted. Without them, I'd have zilch, really.

I walked over to MB and C’s home about 4, we drank some nice champagne, then sat down to dinner with their four sons and MB’s sister, who’d driven down from Denver. The boyos are all smart, funny and voluble. We all get into a big discussion about food and dining, which leads in some interesting directions. Apparently I’ll be taking the two youngest to some local Chinese buffet where the big attraction, they tell me, is that each item is “only a $1.98!” Somehow I’m not as excited by this as 11- and 12-yr olds. The oldest son, A, and I do some jamming, he on his alto sax (I think; or is it a tenor?) and me on the old piano. We do the Cole Porter song “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye” and then a bluesy dirge. All good fun.

We finish off the evening with some amazing pies and a dessert wine of which I have absolutely no recollection. I must be getting old.

2002 Aubry, Sablé Rosé, Brut Champagne
Lovely pale pink salmony color – almost not rosé. This must get just a few hours of skin contact – it is the palest rosé I know. There are hints of straw, pears and delicate strawberries in the nose, with a touch of yeasty breadiness, framed by hints of lime and lemon blossoms and minerals. On the palate, this has excellent acidity and structure, but does not lack in the fruit department – there’s good yellow cherries, white currant, apples and hints of the aforementioned strawberries. This has a lovely balanced finish and has consistently been one of my favorite champagnes, year in and year out. (4.0-nb)

1992 Mongerard-Mugneret Echezeaux
I had some doubts about this bottle – ’92 was a horrid vintage in most of Europe, there was some leakage around the foil, I’d bought it from a less-than-reputable shop – and had left it in my cellar well past what I imagined its “drink-by” date would be. When I opened the bottle, the cork broke and crumbled. I did not have high hopes for this one, which is why the amazing nose of black cherries and freshly-turned soil that literally soared from the glass was, well, freakin’ shocking. Amaaaaazing nose. Add some barnyard and floral elements – this was a great nose. On the palate, it showed just a touch of thinness, but the flavors were solid and neither oxidized nor over-the-hill. Lovely length, perfectly balanced and elegant, this was a stunner - more Audrey Hepburn toward the end of her life than Spohia Loren in the sixties (the next wine). After about 45 minutes it started to fall apart in the glass, but we were pretty much done with it by then. Great stuff. (4.0+nb)

2000 Maculan Crosara
This is Fausto Maculan’s 100% Merlot bottling – and it’s tarty, forward and very sexy (the aforementioned comparison to Sophia Loren c. 1960 iis spot-on, I think.) The nose is intense and fruit-driven – layers of berries, cherries and dark currants fly out of the glass. This is definitely made in a modern, fruit-driven style, but thankfully lacks the unstructured quality of many of these wines due to its good acid structure. On the palate, dark chocolate and coffee beans round out the intense fruit, with some nice mineral and oak accents. The tannins are soft and in the background and the finish is long and dark. Very nice. (3.5+nb)

Overwhelmed

I've been back for two weeks and am still catching up - and feeling completely overwhelmed by stuff. The piles of crap only seem to get taller, no matter how much I work on them. Just when I seem to get a handle on things, another project falls in my lap.

On top of the usual jet-lag issues, I got the cruds going around, and have been on-and-off feverish since two days after getting back. Yuck. I still have trouble breathing. One day will be good, the next I'll slide back two steps. I hate snot.

Last week was my regular monthly tasting group and I was so congested I could not smell a thing. I stopped even trying to take notes after the second wine, and contented myself with muddying the waters for everyone else: "No, I think this is definitely a Rioja ..." when sampling what was obviously a very oaky Zin (even that I was able to get correct ...). After a while the rest of the group got wise and ignored me.

Enough whining. Tuesday night I opened two wines - both real nice - at the CS Fine Arts Center for a fundraising event. If you have not yet been in to see the new building, get yer ass in gear and do so. It is lovely.

2006 Bruno Giacosa, Roero Arneis, Piedmont, Italy
Very bright and floral nose with peach, apple and hints of citrus and cirtus flowers. This has great structure and is still very lush without being at all fat on the tongue. This ends up being one of my favorite whites almost every year, and this vintage is no different - this is delicious. Lovely fruit on the finish. Perfect with shellfish or smoked slamon. No oak on this, thank goodness. Very nice. Drink now - early summer 2008. 4.0+nb

2005 Alvaro Palacios, Les Terasses, Priorato, Spain
Once again, a home run from one of Spain's most talented winemakers. That this wine delivers so much quality at about $32 a bottle is astounding (and much of the recent price increases are due to the sagging dollar, not profiteering by European winemakers). This bottle rivlals wines in the $75-100 range, and surpasses many of them. Loads of dark stone fruits annd vanilla from the liberal use of oak barrels gives this a heady, modern nose, and the palate delivers intense flavors of dark plums and berries, minerals, wood and coffee. IT is intense and needs a year or two to knit itself together, but even so this is delicious now. Drink 2008-2015. 4.0nb

Last Sunday, with H & T and CC:

1998 Maculan, "Fratta" IGT Veneto, Italy
This wine arrived in Colorado the last few weeks that my old restaurant, Primitivo, was open - and it was one of the few things I didn't send back to the wholesaler during that time. Fausto Maculan had apparently put my name on one of the few cases that had come over to the US after I'd expressed curiosity about this project during a long and wine-sodden meal near his hometown of Breganze. It has continued to evolve from the fruit-bomb of its youth into a beautifully elegant older wine - the fruit is still there, but with secondary and tertiary charachteristics of dried prune plums, rasins, cranberries and a full complement of earthy, mineral aspects to go with the now-subtle oak. This wine has knit together in a lovely and impressionistic way. The tannins have faded and the wine is soft and velety in the mouth. Drink now-2010.
4.0-nb

The image is of a statue of one of the Venetian Doges or some such muckety-muck, taken in Venice in the piazza next to the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo two weeks ago; I loved this light and the sky was gorgeous. I suppose I could have just taken a pic of the bottle of Fratta; instead, you have to settle for this.