Good Wines, Good Times...

First, Saturday night... the 1999 Louis Jadot Chambertin Clos de Beze Grand Cru had a pretty, concentrated nose of black plums, wild strawberries, and mushrooms with hints of black turned earth and spice. Very, very young and closed. It just doesn't have the class of the DRC or Leroy wines... speaking of Leroy... The 1999 Domaine Leroy Meursault 1er Cru "Charmes" was very closed... my initial thoughts were that this was simply a weak wine, but then I realized that the concentration of minerals is so great, and with lovely melon aromas, balanced with the intense acid structure of this wine - it was simply shut down. Closed. nothing. For tonight it was ok, but I can see it blossoming into a great fat monster someday. The 1995 Penfold's St. Henri Shiraz was awesome... This is my style of Aussie wine. Nicely mature with black pepper, ripe red raspberry (a classic signature of mature Australian shiraz), plums, and figs. It's powerful, but extremely elegant and has a very long finish to it. It's up there with the 1995 Grange...

Last night I got together with some friends to watch my basketball bracket dissapear... oh, and have some great wine. The 1983 Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt Scharzhofberger Riesling Spatlese, Mosel Saar Ruwer, Germany took about 5 minutes to fully open, then blossomed into a mass of oily minerals with intense apricot, honeydew melon and lemons. While not as good as the 1983 Graaacher Himmelreich I had in the fall, this was certainly up there. The color was a deep gold, very vibrant, and extremely bright. This wine still has a long life ahead of it. The 1976 Petershoff Eitelsbacker Marienholz Riesling Spatlese, Rheinhessen was unfortunately badly oxidized - so there's not much to say. The 1990 Alfred Gratien Brut was sensational... along with Bollinger and Krug, this is the only other Champagne producer that fements in oak barrels exclusively. The stuff rocks... reminded me of Bollinger RD, with a perfect set of bubbles. This was a joy to drink. Yeasty, with loads of apricot, orange blossoms, and SO MANY BUBBLES!!! I've never seen an aged bottle of Champagne have so many incredibly tiny bubbles. This too was so young and vibrant! The 2003 Robert Foley Vineyards Charbono has a sweet jammy fruit, graphite and a violet nose. This wine is rustic, but in a good way. Clearly an Italian grape varietal, this is one of the "oddballs" that I love to drink. Haven't had one since we moved down here... Good stuff. The 1986 Chateau Ducru-Beaucaillou was very good, nicely concentrated, but a bit thin - and slightly off-putting with it's TCA tainted nose (AKA, this was awas corked). But perhaps it's wasn't corked... RP notes that in some of these bottles, there can be an aroma of damp cardboard (still a fault, but perhaps something different than TCA). Anyway, we still managed to drink the wine, as it was still delicious and not off enough to not. It's amazing what happens when it's YOUR bottle that's corked... you still want to drink it. You're determined, by hook or by crook, to drink it beacuse it's supposed to be good, it's supposed to be great and you want to see what all of the fuss is about. We enjoyed it... a great time. Cheers... tonight I'll be tasting through some Harlan, Araujo and many others, and Tuesday night, well, we'll just call that "1975 Petrus Night".