Old Platts

Whoa. These notes are at least a year old. Just found while cleaning.

My friends the Platts throw great dinner parties. They are very good cooks and company, so I never turn down an invite if I can help it.


N.V. Larmandier-Bernier Champagne 1er Cru Terre de Vertus
From magnum. Certainly my favorite wine from Larmandier and among my favorite Champagnes. Everything you expect from this wine. Driving and uncompromising with intensity and focus. Clean, pristine and gem-like. Yes.

2005 Paolo Bea Bianco Santa Chiara
I’m not the hugest fan of this wine. I liked it better when it was made straight and not as an orange wine. Maybe the grapes or the site don’t lend themselves to it. I’m not sure, but it doesn’t pick up the drive that good orange wines have.

2005 Pépière (Marc Ollivier) Muscadet Cuvée Granite
From magnum. Just awesome. Marc Olivier is a genius.

2006 Fèlsina Chianti Classico
The new vintage and seemingly good, but a little too young and grapey and unevolved to really get a read on. Two or three bottles thrown back uncritically.

1996 Paitin di Pasquero-Elia Barbaresco Sori Paitin
I was thinking that this may be entering a good drinking phase and it is almost there. I liked the structure, but it wasn’t showing the aromatic evolution that I would like. I’d hold for a few more years to let that come out and by then it should be very good wine. Will probably continue to develop well for a good while.

And sometimes it disappoints

After posting recently about the joys of well-stored wine, I feel compelled to point out that it doesn't always work out that way.

1995 San Giusto a Rentennano Percarlo
I had been curious about how this wine was progressing. It was so tough and backwards for so long, I thought it might never come around. Well, it has, but I’m not sure that it was worth the fuss and the wait. It didn’t become something as interesting as I had hoped all those years ago when I stashed it away. I probably would have liked it better a couple of years ago, but maybe it went straight from having tons of structure to having none, I don’t know since it has been a while. The color is still dark and the palate is resolved and velvety. Texturally, the wine is quite nice, but it lacks aromatic drive and punch. Perfectly good and a nice enough accompaniment to an excellent osso buco prepared by my brother, but disappointing in the context of my expectations. This wine wasn’t too expensive back when I bought it (I’m sure it was around $25, I was still in grad school).