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A few interesting wines...


detlef
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So, I haven't posted tasting notes latey and tried a few things lately that merited mention.

 

One of my distributors was offering some closeouts so I snapped a few things up that I typically can't afford (well, truth be told really shouldn't be paying for at the close out price but what the hell). I mean, Grand Cru Burgundy is something that's sort of fun to check in with from time to time. Unless I'm fortunate enough to be around when my high roller clients open up the really good stuff, the best I can do is wait for the large house stuff (Latour or Jadot) goes on sale. Mind you, a side note is that the wine that got me hooked on Pinot was the 87 Jadot Corton GC that we were buying for $22 because the vintage was sandwiched between the heralded 85,86,88,89, and 90 vintages and nobody wanted it. Sorry, I digress.

 

So, I bought '03 Latour Corton Grancy at $65 and '03 Latour Batard Montrachet at $125. I wanted the '04 Batard as well to taste them side by side but somebody else snapped that up. I also rolled the dice on the last 3 bottles of La Grange '97 St. Julien because I've always liked the house and 97 wasn't a bad vintage and, well, it was $13 so what the hell.

 

Today we opened the Corton Grancy and the La Grange.

 

Frankly, the Corton was about as I would have expected. Impressive but with too much alcohol. After a while, that blew off and you could smell raspberries and classic pinot fruit. On the pallette, it was lush and silky. Frankly, it tasted like something from California. Certainly good, but nowhere near worth the money. Of course, I could have predicted that and almost didn't bother ordering it until the devil on my shoulder told me to.

 

The Lagrange made up for it. Text book Bordeaux. Elegant and polished with a perfect balance of fruit and mature nuance. I would imagine that this is about as good as this wine will ever taste. No touch of brown in the color but the wine absolutely evolves in the glass from clean black currant to evolved and carmelized leather and olives.

 

I was also pissed because I locked up the last two cases of Henri Gouges Nuit St. Georges Les Chenes Carteaux 1er Cru 2002 and ordered one bottle to taste my best customers who tend to buy through me and have typically liked the '02s. F'ers sent me '03 instead so that one will have to wait. I have reason to expect good things. Gouges is a classic producer who always seems to reward a bit of patience and '02 is the kind of vintage that he would do well in.

 

Now, if you made it this far, here's a carrot. Terra Andina Reserva Pinot Noir. I never thought I'd ever hear myself say this but South America finally made a good Pinot Noir. Seriously, it tastes like Pinot, not some overripe Shiraz packaged as Pinot. Just your basic, user friendly pinot and I pay like $7 a bottle wholesale so it shouldn't be more than $10 in the stores. I defy anyone to find a better Pinot for $10.

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The '03 Latour Batard Montrachet was pretty much a letdown. Just big fat butter ball with little else about it that was very interesting. It was also cloudy. Mind you, it didn't taste flawed, just not all that interesting at all. We'd opened up some other Chards that afternoon because we were doing our monthly wine seminar for our wait staff and I was talking about Chardonnay. The '05 Dunah Dee Dee's vineyard kicked it's ass. In fact, a friend who was in the restaurant later said if I poured the 3 wines we had open blind and told him that one was GC Burg, he'd have guessed the DuNah in a second.

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  • 3 weeks later...

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