Nice Wines

The 1995 Chateau Talbot is showing very pretty... while I'd venture to guess it's not going to get much better than it is now, it should hold this peak for quite a while. Lots of cedar, tobacco, and black plums with cassis on the finish. A very, very nice wine. Tonight, the 1998 Ornellaia was showing so much better than the other night. This one had black plums, black currants, dried leaves, and tobacco, but the wood elements were not so overpowering. This is the 1998 Ornellaia that I knew... But I have to wonder about the significant bottle variation I've seen in this wine the last 4 times I've tasted it. What's going on? The 1999 Guigal Cote-Rotie "La Landonne" is a blockbuster... massive in every sense of the word. One of the great Syrahs I've ever tasted. While a bit closed, the structure and the power were incredible. Notes of meat, bacon, black pepper, tar, tobacco, and black cherries. This wine is but a baby and will age for decades. While I'm sure this wine will be better at some point down the road, I would imagine the evolution will take at least a decade - too bad this was the only bottle. This shows why Guigal is the master of Cote-Rotie, and La Landonne may be the best of the three La-La's in 1999.

As a note, I continue to find myself drawn to these beautiful, Burgundy-like Cote-Roties of the Northern Rhone Valley. Like great Barolo and Barbaresco, these wines, though massive, have such finesse attached to their power, such elegance to balance out the otherwise incredible concentrations that they remind me of some of the great Burgundies I've ever tasted. The only thing they are missing is the haunting aspect of delicacy that a great Richebourg or La Tache possess - the fact that in one minute, these wines can turn from greatness to nothing in seconds. The Northern Rhones don't seem to have that... they only seem to become more alive. This is why I love wine...