Accept no substitute

Old friends of the family came down to visit and brought with them some MD lump crab meat for some fantastic MD crab cakes. There really is no substitute for the real thing.

2009 Michel Gahier Chardonnay Arbois Les Crets

Some people have claimed to find this wine “too vintage marked”, whatever that means. I found it to be excellent, just like every Gahier wine I’ve had so far. This was clean, bright, and well proportioned. Plenty of yellow pitted fruits and stone nuances. Lively and bright, a svelte middleweight. I think this would probably age pretty well for 7-10 years, but for my palate, I can enjoy it now. This was a superb match for the crab cakes. For the price and reasonable availability, Gahier is becoming my go to source for Jura wines.

2010 Coudert Fleurie Clos de la Roilette Griffe du Marquis

Wow. This is the second bottle of this and if anything, it might be even better and showing a more savory side. Truly great wine.

2010 St. Innocent Pinot Noir Momtazi Vineyard

I haven’t had a St. Innocent wine in a while, but the last one I had, a Brickhouse Vineyard, showed resemblance to this wine in that it was only moderately colored. This showed nice lighter red tart fruit with nice spice notes on the top and some earth underneath. I liked the sense of structure that it had. Not a big wine, but well framed. This fit well with a Kelly Fox Momtazi I had a while back. I think this could improve and soften over a few years, but there is no shame in drinking it now. I found that it liked about an hour in the decanter.

2009 Broc Cellars Vine Starr Red

I’ve really been enjoying Chris Brockway’s wines over the last couple of months and this zinfandel might be my favorite. Made in a lower octane style, the wine presents a face of zinfandel that I haven’t seen for a while. What greats you are earthy and savory notes, not the fruit jam that so many others offer. You have to wait a while for the fruit, but it's there. Went really well with food, as it has every time I've had it. I'm interested to see how this develops, but I only have a single bottle left to me now. I guess I'll give it 2-3 years? I think Chris is making the kind of wines I've been looking for from CA and I'm really excited to drink through all of them. Speaking of the real thing, this is it.

Headcheese and hachis

Met up with my friend Noel after a long slog at the shop for some headcheese and hachis parmentier at the bar of Vin Rouge. We decanted both of these bottles and drank them over a couple of hours.

2006 Hubert Lignier Gevrey-Chambertin

Started out tight with only a hint of fruit and spice on the nose. With some time it became more expansive, the spice giving way to other earthy and woodsy notes while the fruit deepened in pitch and in weight. Nicely balanced with good tannic structure, this develops into a lovely mid-weight Gevrey with wood and soil tones. I think it will probably be even better in 2 or 3 years. This could be one of those sneaky villages wines that someone will pull out of their ass in 15 years that blows you away.

2010 Coudert Fleurie Clos de la Roilette Griffe du Marquis

Holy crap is this good. The texture is pure velvet and brings to mind the old cliché, iron fist in a velvet glove. Lots of fruit and flowers followed by minerals over the structure. Not aromatically complex yet, even after decanting, but really succulent on the palate. It makes me want to say, “very fine, indeed.” Part of me thinks this is the best Beaujolais ever made.

Bad news for 2002 Beaujolais

In the past two weeks I have had both of the wines below and found them to be fading hard and losing their middle. I am surprised by this turn of events.

2002 Michel Tête Juliénas
Shot from the word go. Browning at the edges, dried out.

2002 Coudert Fleurie Clos de la Roilette
Upon first opening, the smell of the cork and the aroma right out of the bottle was promising. In the glass it was also hollowed out in the middle. Damn.

I’ve got a Desvignes Côte du Py on deck. If it’s toast, I’ll be pissed.

Gamay broth

Sunday chicken social with Will, Brad, Christine, and Vicky. Lively conversation mostly centered around music, but wide ranging.

2009 Marcel Lapierre Morgon
On the first night, this had really rich fruit and an almost meat broth quality. Umami in wine, who knew? (As an aside, I always found it curious the was David Schildknecht would identify chicken broth in some Chablis, but it was sometimes there and a more beefy broth was definitely here.) There is pretty deep finishing fruit. On the next night it has calmed down a bit and there isn’t as much of the fruit sap and the broth quality has also become just a more general meatiness. There is some structure here, but not like one finds in Coudert or Desvignes.

2009 Marcel Lapierre Morgon
This bottle never showed the umami side of the other bottle, but had plenty of fruit, although never as sappy. It did show a little bit of heat on the back end the longer it was open. The best of these two experiences was the first bottle on its first night.

2005 Coudert Fleurie Clos de la Roilette
It took a while for this to open, and it never did completely, but what it did show was a refined wine of some length. This has, not as brooding quality, but a steely one which brings to mind the iron-fist-in-a-velvet-glove tropism. Very pure red fruits, some woods-y aromas and a strong mineral spine with firm but fine tannins. A good dose of them for gamay as well. Just starting to enter a good window

To go with cheese, we scrounged around Will’s fridge for some whites, we came up with some interesting wines.
2004 Willi Schaefer Graacher Domprobst Riesling Auslese #14
This was fantastic. Really penetrating nose of green grape and slate and a bit of herbs. I love the refreshing briskness of the wine. I could drink tons of this. It was a very nice foil for the cheese.

1997 Gallo of Sonoma Chardonnay Late Harvest Style
Not bad at all. Not particularly good, but not cloying and with the cheese did fairly well.

Special report: 2005 Beaujolais

A special treat to make up for not posting last Friday. These notes are from Spring 2007 that I found while doing some housecleaning of old files.. Of particular interest is that the 2000 Brun l’Ancien was corked and the 2005s have become an undrinkable mess under fake cork. Puts the difficulty of dealing with this issue in sharp relief.



My tasting group gathered for our (more or less) annual Beaujolais dinner. This year the focus was on the 2005 vintage, a vintage thought to be the best since the legendary 1991. I'm in no position to dispute that as the tasting showed many wines with excellent density, structure and balance and a couple of surprises. We had a fantastic meal of hearty French fare put together by my brother and the staff at Rue Cler (if you are ever in the triangle, make sure to stop in for dinner). The thing that really struck me tonight was that some surprising wines like the Savoye, Chignard, and Diochon showed so spectacularly. The Savoye and Diochon look likely candidates for the cellar as well. Another smaller lesson is that it is time to start finishing off your 2000s. This was never likely to be a long lived vintage, so I'd get what's left in them now rather than waiting. This brings up an interesting issue about how much 2005 Beaujolais to buy. It is certainly a stupendous vintage that should drink well for 20 years (at least if the 1991 Coudert I tried in February is indicative of the future behavior of the best 2005s). I didn't put any 2003 or 2004s in the cellar and will probably be loading up, maybe not in blackwoodian quantities, but more than I've ever bought before.

2005 Terres Dorées (Jean-Paul Brun) Beaujolais Cuvée l'Ancien
Nice dark but translucent robe. Bright fruit and that crunchiness I associate with l'Ancien. An excellent showing tonight with plenty of stuffing, structure, and length. Clearly punching above it's weight class and as good a young l'Ancien as I can remember. At least one person thought this was the best wine of the night.

2005 Michaud Brouilly Prestige de Vieilles Vignes
Kind of a letdown after the rave reviews this has been receiving. Nothing wrong with it, but rather mute on the nose and out of it's depth in the company of many of these wines tonight. Best in terms of it's mouthfeel, but I expected to have more on the nose and a greater sense of style.

2005 Terres Dorées (Jean-Paul Brun) Côte de Brouilly
This is really dominated by its structure today. Tastes of chalk and tannin and really doesn't show the seamless texture and fruit. Not sure what to make of it. I mean, I like the structure and the ascetic qualities, but I would like the promise of fruit coming into balance.

2005 Chanrion Côte-de-Brouilly
Tastes almost artificial in this company. Kool-Aid-ish and not terribly interesting.

2005 Clos de Roilette (Coudert) Fleurie
I've already had this several times, so I spent less time with it than maybe I should have. While it is no surprise that 2005 is an excellent vintage for this wine, what did surprise me was that I preferred the Tardive to this bottling. That almost never happens.

2005 Clos de Roilette (Coudert) Fleurie Cuvée Tardive
As alluded to above, this may be the first time I've preferred the Tardive to the regular cuvee from Coudert. I think because of the massive amount of baby fat they both have, it was the sheer expressiveness on the nose of this wine. Bought a case of magnums (cool!) and will fill my cellar with this spherical wine. Tons of fruit, as one would expect, but it was the clarity and poise of the nose that made this wine so dramatic. If I had a complaint, it would have been the absence of structure, but my guess is that it was just covered in baby-fat.

2005 Chignard Fleurie Les Moriers
This wine showed brilliantly and was another wine that exceeded expectations. Really sparkeled with fresh flowers, fruit, and rocks. It was mouthfilling, but not heavy and washed off the palate with fresh acidity, bright flavors, and nice structure. Not sure this will be a long ager, but should be a delight for the next 3-5 years.

2004 Vissoux (Pierre-Marie Chermette) Fleurie Poncié
This turned out to be a 2004 as well. Pretty much undistinguished, but I didn't put much effort into it either.

2005 Clos de Fief (Tête) Juliénas
A great vintage for this wine which a couple of folks thought was the best of the night. I seem to have a real weakness for Tête's wines. They have a really brash, deeply cherry quality that is tangy and deep without being too flirty to be taken seriously. There is always a dark mineral underpinning to the fruit and a purple flower quality tot the nose. No doubt at least a couple cases will make it into the cellar.

2004 Clos de Fief (Tête) Juliénas Cuvée Prestige
Turned out to be the 2004. To my palate, not a great year for this cuvée, but polished and graceful if a bit herby. Amazing how old this looks next to the electric 2005.

2005 Lapierre Morgon
This showed the most aromatic complexity of the low-sulfur Morgons without any of the unbalanced qualities that can sometimes plague this wine. Lots of ripe berries and herbs here and less structured than I would have thought. Again, covered in baby-fat I presume. I'm definitely a buyer, but maybe in small-ish quantities.

2005 Savoye Morgon Côte de Py
For me this was one of the big surpises of the tasting. Lighter in color than many of the other wines and more mineral and structured. Has a vinous quality that surpasses many of the other wines. While stern and serious, it still tastes like Morgon. It reminds me quite a bit of the wines of Desvignes. I do not know very much about this producer, but to my palate this was one of the 2-3 best wines at the table. I will certainly put some of this in the cellar.

2005 Foillard Morgon Côte du Py
This has an herb and seeded berry jam quality that I associate with this wine. A distinctive profile and the 2005 is no different. Lots of fruit and baby fat make it appear a bit simple, but delicious. A slight wiff of VA (this wine usually has some) makes me a bit wary of cellaring, but the potential is definitely there.

2005 Thévenet Morgon Vieilles Vignes
This wine was mildly corked. It seemed off at first, but it took a while for the TCA to become apparent. Too bad as the 2002 was the star of the dinner for that vintage.

2005 Vissoux (Pierre-Marie Chermette) Moulin à Vent Les Deux Roches
One of the most deeply colored and fruited wines. I've always found the Vissoux Cru to be stylistically quite different from the Cuvée Tradition. However, you have to give it it's due. It shows waves and waves of deep fruit over a bright granite slab. A delicious wine if not especially complex.

2005 Diochon Moulin-A-Vent Vieilles Vignes
This was the other big surprise. Really an excellent wine with herb and mineral infused fresh crushed berries, excellent length, and precise structure. I have developed a theory on Diochon, that the wine is ho-hum but in excellent years, it will be truly excellent (see the 1991 and 1995). Really, this was shockingly good.

2000 Terres Dorées (Jean-Paul Brun) Beaujolais Cuvée l'Ancien
Corked. Damn.

2000 Clos de Roilette (Coudert) Fleurie
It was tough having these together with the newer wines. I had a bottle of this in September with my folks and it showed great. It looked tired (a bit of browning, but that could be the lighting as well) and showed it a bit. I'm planning on finishing off my remaining bottles over the next 6 months.

2000 Clos de Fief (Tête) Juliénas
See above. Also tired, although maybe a bit more spine left than the Coudert.