What I do for my friends

Went to dinner at Rue Cler with Matt. Brought his two favorite wines since he is leaving for a month.

2002 Azienda Agricola Stanislao Radikon Jakot Venezia Giulia IGT
A deeper color than when I last had it. After some air, the nose really opens up. This is my favorite of the Radikon wines and while this bottle doesn’t have the intensity of past bottles, the 2002 vintage was probably not a great candidate for aging. Not that these bottles should be aged in any event.

2003 Clos Rougeard (Foucault) Saumur-Champigny Le Bourg
This showed a lot of wood on first opening. After about an hour in the carafe, the wood started to become more of a complement, with notes of spice, rather than a focal point. This has excellent texture with a nose and palate that is pure Bourg. This wine, along with the 1997 of this and Breton’s Perrières of the same vintages, is the wine that made me question perceived wisdom about vintages and to start asking questions about how the wine can be so remarkable and fresh in such a hot and challenging year like 2003. What this comes down to is not so much ambient temperature, but soil depth. There is very little topsoil at Bourg and underneath is pure rock, according to Nady Foucault. The same is true of Perrières, according to Pierre Breton. This same topic came up a couple of years later with Kevin Harvey at Rhys when discussing his various vineyards. Although the Skyline wasn’t the coolest of his vineyards, it had the poorest soil which really makes the plant struggle to ripen and forces the roots very deep to find water.

Vin de Soif

Having dinner with my friend RJ who was packing things up before closing on his house and heading out to Seattle for good. Had a light dinner of apps and charcuterie at Vin Rouge. Excellent.

2002 Radikon Jakot
This is my favorite of the Radikon whites for reasons I cannot fully explain. I am of the belief that these, with exceptions, gain nothing from extended bottle aging I convinced RJ to bring out his last bottle. It showed OK, but a bit more loose than previous bottles. While still a very good drop, I’ve had better bottles.

2008 Foillard Morgon
When you are in the mood, nothing else will truly suffice. Again, this was not the best bottle of this I’ve had, a bit less overt fruityness (which was sort of what I was looking for) but still able to tickle all the right spots on my palate and even spine. If you don’t like this, you really need to ask yourself if wine truly is your beverage of choice.

Wines that are a bit crazy

From another fine dinner at Vin Rouge with old friends.

2002 Foreau Vouvray Sec Clos Naudin
Not quite into focus as of yet, but rounding into something interesting. I like these wines when they reach a stage where they still have some useful vigor, but aren’t downright painful. This still has nice fruit notes of apple with a dollop of honey, as I’ve found common with Foreau sec at this stage. What I love about the Foreau Vouvray, and the sec especially, is the rusticity of chenin, the wild aggression, and the sense of abandon. In general, I tend to prefer the sec from Foreau and the demi-sec from Huët if I were to compare which is totally unnecessary, but a fun exercise. Fun to check in on now, but will sure age well for my lifetime.

2002 Radikon Venezia Giulia Oslavje
While there were evidently rains in 2002, I’ve found this to be even more successful than 2001 and 2003 for the most part, although it really depends on the bottle and the circumstances. I have a friend who prefers this blend to the other single variety flavors from Radikon. I like this very much as well. I always enjoy introducing these wines to friends who haven’t had them. I’ve generally found that folks really like Radikon in particular. This was another case of that. Served with rillets, this was a perfect compliment. Sometimes folks serve these wines with fish course which Ii think is a terrible idea. I wouldn’t be surprised if it contains the same chemical compounds, due to the skin contact, that makes red wine taste odd or metallic with fish. In any even, another excellent Radikon. I simply can’t drink enough of these wines. I’d drink a couple a week if I could afford to.

2001 Conti Sertoli Salis Valtellina Sforzato Canua
I’ve always been a fan of this wine, but often don’t know what to do with it. Should it be a wine for contemplation to enjoy after a meal with some salty, hard cheese, or should it go with a rich stew of some sort? Actually, either of those would do, but I think the food choice needs to be particular as I don’t find this wine to be very flexible. That said, it was wild, rich, heady, and delicious. On the young side, I’d wait a few more years before opening one.

Old notes but still germane

Some friends and an old professor got together to celebrate my good friend RJ’s completion of his PhD. It’s a group that doesn’t get a chance to spend time together very often as we are spread out over the country at different universities. I haven’t laughed that hard in years.

1999 Gosset Champagne Brut Grand Millésime
Showed pretty well. Definitely made with a “house style” in mind, but that’s OK with me. It was a bit doughy and such but with good structure and a fine mousse.

N.V. Pierre Peters Champagne Blanc de Blancs Brut Cuvée de Réserve
Out of magnum. Very good bubbly. My regular Champagne these days, to the extent that I drink Champagne. I like the leanness and minerality.

2004 Breton Bourgueil Nuits d'Ivresse
From magnum. Ready to go and showed pretty well. We were telling old stories, laughing, eating, and drinking. The wine seemed perfectly suited to that kind of conviviality. Never my favorite of the Breton line-up, every wine has its purpose and this one was fulfilling it perfectly.

2006 Domaine Brana Irouléguy Harri Gorri
A bit disappointing. I was hoping for something more interesting. Kind of glossy and flat.

2002 Radikon Venezia Giulia Jakot
What I love about these wines is that people are immediately drawn to them. I’ve had people say to me that the wines are unsellable and that people don’t get them. I think that’s horseshit. At a table full of people that like wine, but are not geeks by any measure, they all loved the wine without any prodding from me. It’s delicious and great with food. I’d drink it every day if I could afford to.

30 yr old Chinese Liquor
WTF? Crazy.

Johnny Walker Blue Label
Delicious. We drank the whole bottle. If it were cheaper, I’d have it on hand all the time.

Holy Merlot

2007 Charly Thevenet Régnié Grain & Granite
Bright and fresh and natural seeming. Has that sort of spring field bug spray quality that I find more pillowy natural wines to have. There seems to be a rocky underside, but maybe that’s just the power of suggestion. I quite liked the mix of floral and herby flavors with the blue fruits and stoniness. I think this has the structure to improve for a little bit and hold well for 5 years of so, but this is the first of Charly’s wines I’ve had, so that’s just a guess. Thanks to David Lillie for recommending this and making internet shopping safe.

1998 Stanislao Radikon Collio Merlot
This started out soft and drinking easily. As I said to Ken, it is delicious but not impressive. The aromatic profile became broader and encompassed plumy fruit, earth and animal notes and as it opened they all seemed to have a chalky, mineral underpinning. This was a really fascinating wine which evolved and moved around. It might seem strange, but it reminded me a lot of Chave Hermitage from the old days. Great with food. A really remarkable bottle of wine which is pretty expensive, but worth trying at least once. No need to age it any longer (Stanislao took care of that for you), but do give it some air.