a fine wine tasting archive
8 notes
Ed Durell bought a cattle ranch outside the town of Sonoma in 1977 and planted vines because the neighbours had. Forty years later the name is on half the serious Chardonnay labels in the county. Sojourn's version is all Old Wente, from two blocks, in the third year of the drought.
Five hectares of white vines on a fifty-hectare estate, classified for both colours, from a Bordeaux year that cool July and dry September made better for whites than for reds. A gold capsule between a 1990 champagne and a 2008 Aubert.
Sixty-four hectares on the Duero, with Vega Sicilia on one side and Pingus territory on the other. Pruno is the wine the estate makes for drinking now rather than later.
The words Marey-Monge on a DRC label are the trace of a two-century argument over who owned Romanée-Saint-Vivant. The 2014 is the vintage where the vineyard's own character — perfume over power — was easiest to hear.
Two hailstorms took the Parussi vineyard in 2014 and Massolino simply did not bottle it. What was left came into the straight Serralunga Barolo, and in a half bottle six years later it looked like Barolo from an older decade.
In Tuscany's 2014, it rained for twenty-one days in July and Merlot was the variety that suffered most. Galatrona is one hundred percent Merlot. Six years later it was leaner than usual, and better for it.
2014 was the vintage several of Montalcino's most famous estates refused to bottle at all. Banfi made one — and at six years old, opened at home with a delivered pizza, it made a quiet case for the year.
Échézeaux is the DRC wine people meet first; Grands Échézeaux is the one that explains why the hierarchy exists. The 2014, tasted at six years old, was all coiled structure and saline red fruit — a wine opened a decade before its argument.