It has been a crazy few weeks here for the bottle forager, and my apologies for slacking on recent posts!
As things start gaining steam into the upcoming holiday season, the trade side of the wine industry has been busy sharing some exciting and generous offerings. Along with a good handful of trade tastings, we have kept a steady schedule for our blind tasting group along with a few impromptu gatherings of wine friends!
A recent line up of Pre Sale Bordeaux wines brought to me from Monsieur Touton Selections.
These presells have already arrived and hopefully come winter I will have a little side by side of some of my favorite reasonably priced Bordeaux's on the market.
A few other recent notable importer tastings were the Rare Wine Co.'s "it's a rare tasting" that had a few of my favorite wines being poured along with a few that I had never tasted. This show was intimate and a real treat, as the representative from Rare Wine was very knowledgeable about all the wines and the history as well as techniques and growing methods from vineyard to glass.
SIDE NOTE: Sadly not long after this tasting, tough news spread through Maines' wine community that South Portland Wine Co. aka SoPo Wine was calling it quits, and sold the rights to their portfolio to Nappi Distributors. I am still digesting this news as SoPo was one of my favorite and easiest to deal with distributors. Not only were they welcoming and friendly on a personal level but they also were really good about carrying high end unique offerings for people to have access too in their warehouse as opposed to just offering up as full case special orders as a lot of the larger distributors are more frequently doing. More on this in future posts as I have many rants and observation posts already saved as drafts and have yet to unleash my often highly opinionated thoughts on the current state of wine and the market at large... stay tuned!
A nice little gathering of Weygandt imports with some new to me offerings from Wohlmuth in Austria along with a table of heavy hitting Rhone selections and an elegant array of Beaujolais that will be making my Thanksgiving picks a hard decision to narrow down!
Along with Weygandt bringing the heat, Vias Imports had a special occasion tasting that ran the gamut of Barolos, Super Tuscans and some highly allocated brunello as well!
In between a busy couple weeks of trade tastings and tasting group get togethers I did find some time to reinvestigate some Chenin Blancs side by side in classic Loire Project fashion. I have not abandoned the project, its just been busy busy with lots of new and exciting things coming at me from every direction. My focus has waned but my enthusiasm for the project is only building!
Some highlights from our recent tasting group gatherings and blinds.
Jean Francois Ganevat
Les Varrons Vieilles Vignes 2019
Slighty hazy, juicy citrus and orange oil on the nose with complex orchard fruits and bright acidity. Some underlying musky intrigue, possible cold soaked, skin contact adds a fleshy juicy quality that keeps the funky austerity at a whisper and creates a lovely fun but complex glass
Domaine Guiberteau
Clos des Charmes Monopole Breze 2019
Aromas of crisp apple, unripe nectarine, wintergreen, lime, crinkled cress, flint, limestone, lemon skins.
Flavors match and whip my palate around like a rollercoaster but never even slightly loosing track of its path. Dynamic and evolving even hours after sipping... layered with focus and depth while remaining an anomaly to my senses. Cinnamon, red fruits, quince, lemon balm.
Fattoria Poggio di Sotto
Brunello Di Montalcino 2001
Wow, decanted and evaporated over the course of three glasses and an hour of admiration.
Bold masculinity of wood on the nose, dried cherry, sweet pipe tobacco, cedar, wild strawberry, bergamot, sun drenched leather and cherry pie. Quintessential Italian wine that easily the best expression of Sangiovese I have ever tasted.
A unique Chenin that had me going back to over and over, some suppleness of tropical racy fruit entangled in a symphony of minerality and focused acidity!
Oozing with Orange oils and focus, so good and has had me pondering getting more Condrieu in my glass!
Legendary Sancerre from Claude Riffault. A rare treat to experience!
A blind compare and contrast of Syrah from Place of Changing Winds in Australia vs a flagship Gilless from Cornas!
An atypical yet deliciously layered Hermitage from Ferraton.
A spicy floral rose from Domaine Hauvette.
My first real Hunter Valley Semillon from Tyrrell's.
Everytime I drink a Gobelsburg Gruner, I remind myself to search out more of their higher end offerings!
Some well orchestrated offerings from Mt Etna, both expressing a sense of place while remaining complex and highly quaffable.
A flurry of cellar stocking has been taking place as we watch the prices of everything climb like the morning sun, everyday I keep telling myself... nothing ever gets cheaper!
Finally I have take a moment to catalog my notes from this amazing tasting I was given the opportunity to attend a couple weeks back. It was focused on Chateau Musar offerings from Lebanon. The story of these wines is quite fascinating and hopefully in the coming months I will shed more light and knowledge on this historic winery. For now I will leave you with my tasting notes on the above line up that was organized by some fellow wine lovers on a website called Wine Bezerkers.
CHATEAU MUSAR TASTING
MUSAR BLANC
2010- Crisp clean apple fruit, granny smith cider acidity and baked gala roundness with subtle layers of citrus, lemon oil and underlying spices of nutmeg cinnamon and coriander.
Super young and fresh considering its 15 years old but possible due to its magnum size packaging
2008- Deep golden bordering on copper with aromas of waxy muskmelon, bruised apple, dusty wheat berries and ginger snaps.
Palate follows with a baked apple, bruised pear oxidized orchard fruit base that is lifted with underlying citrus oils, hints of nutty complexity that had glimpses of herbal nuances ranging from warm spices to light sage and fennel prawns.
2001- Deep orange copper color with an austere nose leaning into barber shop lanolin and shoe polish but also opening up into some oxidative fruit and nutty sherry like undertones.
The palate was far softer and suppler than the 2008 with much less acidity and evolving nuances. Peach pits, leather, nougat, apricot marmalade and lemon oils swirl through the palate with soft almond and roasted hazelnut accents that evoke a soft bitterness that flows through the finish. Masculine yet elegant, highlight of the night for me!
MUSAR ROUGE (Listed in order I sipped)
2004-Lifted and elegant from start to finish. Fruit is well integrated with touches of fine tannin and restrained but quenching acidity. Perfumed red fruits mingle with power but grace, layers of blueberry, plum skins, dried cherry and fragrant violets. Underlying iron like minerality, much like an elegant jus served alongside the most tender of lamb as opposed to dense blood. Savory herbal accents of lavender, sage and thyme dance through the lively palate adding complexity and length. Tremendous wine and a standout among the vintages shared.
2001 & 2000 - Oxidated, brettanomyces forward with hints of ketchup and sharp VA. I found this wine like the 2001 to be unfortunately flawed and it highlighted the worst parts of the story this wine told for the evening.
None of these flavors that this wine exuded were absent in the other bottles opened but this wine took those accents that I sometimes even found charming in other vintages and dialed them up to a point that was not pleasant to drink for me.
2012- Time open was friendly to this vintage as initially it succumbed to an animalistic bretty nose with some dank basement funk but did initially show some elegance and restraint on the palate… after a couple hours sitting in the decanter that animalistic funk gassed off and opened to an exuberant yet elegant wine that crept up the ladder of the evenings highlights. Nuanced red fruits and fleshy blueberry fruit are interwoven with peppery spice, lavender and mountain mint that danced and evolved through the palate as touches of blood orange zest settled into the breadth of the wine and shined on the finish.
1999- Punchy VA on the nose with lots of funky red fruits interwoven with some dark plummy accents and nuances of pepper, deli meat and stewed red fruits.
Palate follows the nose with some glimpses of finesse but overall a bit shrouded in funky mystery and power that never quite opened into a cohesive wine that would allow me to dive into its depths without finding a distraction from awkward tertiary notes like leather, wet basement and oxidized strawberry juice. Some whispers of greatness but never loud enough to lure me away from the more stellar vintages opened this evening.
1998- Funky nose with traces of VA and animalistic cellar dust & fur leading into some stewy black fruits apparent on the nose with glimpses of elegant perfumed red fruits.
Palate is brighter and more concise than the nose led my palate to expect but still has a backbone of that gaminess. Red fruits and iron minerality shine but with some time in the glass there was some elegance that danced along the acidity and created a floral violet and blood orange accent to the stewiness that gave it life and exuberance. Yes some of the complexity was challenging but I think the sum of the parts made it a treat to sip and evolve into a thought provoking and exciting wine.
1995- Inviting and complex aromas ranging from stewed red fruits, black olives, peppered cranberry sauce and nutty peach pits mingle with soft leather, earthy violets and dried yarrow.
Palate was perfumed and precise with a woven fabric of austerity and elegance. Soft approachable red fruits ebb and flow with dried cranberry and raisin meandering into a masculine leather, dry aged deli meat, slightly syrah-esque nuance that dries out into a floral finessed finish. A journey of a wine that takes you to the edge of the cliff at moments but instead of cowering back to safe ground, an open mind and child like curiosity allows a glimpse of greatness that only time in a bottle can possess. A true treat to experience!
...and the tasting continues, another recent memorable night was to celebrate one of our tasting groups birthdays, and boy did we open some wines!
Starting with 3 white burgundies all distinctively different and unique!
Also pictured here was that 40yr Barbeito Madeira Malvasia that was the night cap to the occasion.
Bartolo Mascarello 2010
Pours a brick crimson with some aging clarity on the edges.
Aromas are bright and youthful with tart juicy cherry, layers of roses, peony and tar integrating nicely with some wet earthy barrel muskiness underlying and providing a nice basket to hold the red fruits.
Palate follows and is showing beautifully but still almost youthful playfulness of the fruit with some serious barolo elegance that graces the palate and draws out a symphony of evolving mystery in the finish.
This wine was a highlight of the night and a game changer after sipping two Produttori Barbaresco's from 2008 (Muncagota/Ovello) to prime the Nebbiolo palate and then we moved onto a couple Castellare I Sodi di San Niccolo along with there 100% Merlot offering called Poggio Al Merlei
While getting into Italian wines, someone in the group just got home from a few weeks in Sicily and smuggled home this rare offering of a Bordeaux style wine from a small boutique producers in the region!
And finally a little after Thanksgiving gathering that ended up being an impromptu Riesling deep dive where everyone showed up with a few bottles of Riesling with no proper planning including a Maximin Grunhaus Riesling Sekt 2018 & Carl Loewen "1896" 2015 that were the highlights of the night that eventually ended up with a couple bottles of Madeira and some heavy hitting whiskeys.
So yes its been a busy and exciting time to be gathering and sharing. Personally I have been diving down a big rabbit hole of Hungarian whites as well and hope to have a post about those coming in the next week or two along with preparing for another Bubbles to the New Year which was part of the catalyst to revive the Bottle Forager from the shadows!
Stay tuned and keep foraging for those special moments shared with passionate people and thought provoking sips!
