SMALL CARNIVAL GATHERING - At Home (2/10/2006)

Friday was Cathryn's birthday. She's from New Orleans and won't be
making it home for Mardi Gras this year so we had a small carnival
party. Food included jambalaya, gumbo, muffalettas, and similar items.
I chose four wines with the idea of trying to box in the tough matches.
Riesling for a gentle but bright white, aligoté for a bit sharper
white, Brouilly for a bright and fresh red, and Cairanne for a round
and ready red. For the three French wines, I also picked up the
generally crowd-pleasing 2003 vintage. I think that it, perhaps,
pleased the crowd. Whether it pleased me was another question.

*2004 Greenhough Riesling - New Zealand, South Island, Nelson*

Light and bright appearance. Nose of limey apple and mineral. A bit of
spritz on the tip of the tongue highlights the bright freshness of
this. Good acid, nice lime and peach highlights surround the core of
apple fruit and mineral. Maybe a touch of petrol (but just the
slightest hint) in the finish. This makes a passing reference to
Alsace, but lacks a bit of the density and concentration it showed last
time I had it. Bright and fresh and everything a simple young riesling
should be, but a tad disappointing only because it was such an
over-performer the last time I had it.

*2003 Fleurot-Larose Bourgogne-Aligoté - France, Burgundy, Côte d'Or,
Bourgogne-Aligoté*

Relatively deep and dark color, hinting at something but I wasn't sure
what. On the nose, it became immediately apparent; a dastardly duo of
vintage and super-toasted oak had done its evil work. You know those
aboukir almonds that sometimes appear at the end of a meal? That's
exactly what this wine smelled and tasted like. The butterscotchy
sweetness of the new oak and the super-ripe fruit of the vintage
produced a big cloying glass without any fresh and acid aligoté
profile. I had hoped the vintage richness and typical aligoté
character would combine to produce a great outcome. No such luck. The
wines from Fleurot-Larose are getting new exposure in Japan now because
the owner has married a Japanese woman (or so I am told). Based on this
taste, I won't be trying any more of them. I also hear they've sold or
long-term leased out their little plot of Montrachet. I had hoped the
proceeds would go into better wine. From all that I can tell, they've
simply gone into a grotesque level of toasted barrel purchasing. I
realize that I haven't described anything else I found in the wine, but
what's the point? To be fair, without the extremely cloying
aboukir-almond-sweetness this would just have been an overoaked wine.
But I just couldn't get past that kernel of sweetness, even though I
drank parts of several glasses throughout the night to give it a
chance.

*2003 Jean-Claude Lapalu Brouilly Croix des Rameaux - France, Burgundy,
Beaujolais, Brouilly*

Schizophrenia... That's the only way I know to describe my reaction to
this wine. It has a nice deep purplish red color that is bright at the
same time. The nose shows just a bit of new oak vanilla sweetness that
also comes out on the palate as a certain (baby Dujac-like) silkiness
and an occasionally cloying candy note. There are really two strains of
fruit: a typical Brouilly bright red berry with almost peachy acidity
and also a very Moulin-a-Vent like deep plummy fruit that even
threatens to hint at chocolate. It is surprisingly dense and reasonably
persistent on the finish. The alcohol is occasionally a tad hot, but
gives the wine a certain sweetness and body that makes it seem bigger
than it is. If I rated wine on some absolute scale, I would probably
have to rate this higher than most Beaujolais that I am happier
drinking. It really does have all the pieces in that way. Yet, somehow,
it just shows a bit too much of the effort to move north to the Côte
d'Or and bit too much of the vintage. Ease up on the new oak (or
whatever gave the sweet nose) and tone down the ripeness and the dark
fruit a bit and this would be a headline stunner of a cru Beaujolais.
As it is, it is almost there. But I feel a bit like I'm buying some
kind of pirated good in a back alley in Beijing. If I'd wanted a pinot
from the Côte d'Or, I would have bought a basic bourgogne from
Geantet-Pansiot or Lafarge. Those were available for about the same
money. I wanted to buy a Beaujolais (and a lighter, brighter wine like
the Brouilly it claims to be).

*2003 Domaine Richaud Côtes du Rhône Villages Cairanne - France,
Rhône, Southern Rhône, Côtes du Rhône Villages Cairanne*

"Love the one you're with..." Deep and dark ripe plummy color. Nose
shows a bit of dust and garrigue to highlight the ripe blackberry juice
nose. On the palate, again shows just enough hot earth and herb to
avoid ripe-black-fruit malaise. Juicy and fun, with good density and
enough pleasant richness to wear its alcohol well. A meaty element on
the finish and the slightest tannic bite round out the package. While I
love Rabasse-Charavin and other CdR that have great acid and red fruit
that I can age forever, there is always a place for ripe and young and
pleasantly rich CdR. This fits the bill perfectly. That was what I was
looking for when I bought the wine and it delivered. While I've yet to
have a bigger appellation 2003 from the Rhone that pleased, the lesser
apps in the south are providing some nice and juicy young drinking.


As stated above, the Cairanne was exactly what I was looking for and so
was the riesling. The Brouilly was good in some sense, but was a prime
example of why wines should be true to their appellations. Otherwise,
how do we know what to buy? The aligoté was a freaking cartoon.

None of this really mattered though, as the Hurricanes were the more
popular item -- at least until the collective groans went up the next
morning.

Posted from CellarTracker

Enjoy,

Jim