Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Modernism doesn't always work

In architecture, design, and a bunch of other areas, I'm a staunch modernist. With Barolo, it's been more of a mixed bag for me.

2004 Domaine de la Pépière (Marc Ollivier) Muscadet
This bottle still has some nice driving minerals left. This is my last bottle due to the plastic corks and it didn’t let me down. A very nice accompaniment to a plateau fruits de mer. Really good cut and verve while noticeable mellower than as a young wine.

1995 Azelia Barolo Bricco Fiasco
I was hoping that this would prove to be ready to go. The combination of modernist and ho-hum vintage has worked very well for me with the 1993s. Maybe I shouldn’t have decanted. In any event, it started out with an attractive nose of deep cherries, flowers, smoke, cedar and a bit of spice. The palate seemed to have some voluptuousness to it. Well, we didn’t drink it for another hour and a half and during that time the structure really came out. Even the venison sausage could barely dent the structure. The nose remained pretty, but the tannin started to dry out the palate and the acids became disjoint. I told the guys to put the rest back in a bottle and try it the next day. It was my last bottle and I definitely missed the spot on it. I’ll let that be a lesson with respect to the rest of my 1995s. Hold for 5 more years or so.

1 comment:

slaton said...

Shitcock. Didn't realize '04 Pepiere had plastic corks. Better drink up.