DaleW wrote:

>>1999 Saintsbury Reserve Pinot Noir (Carneros)
>
>
> Don't remember having the 1999, but long a favorite producer.

Yeah, they're one of my favorite Carneros producers (of still wine). I
find that their normal cuvée and their reserve bottling are more to my
liking than either their Garnet (too simple) and their Brown Ranch too
extracted.


> Glad to hear it was good -buying 3+ year SB makes you braver than me!
> I think I liked the couple bottles of the Crossings I tried, but it
> was never quite at the level of the better vintages of Babich or
> Cairnbrae "Stones"

I've had the advantage of visiting Wairau River Winery in Marlborough
with Ian Hoare and Lord St. H. back in '01. There we were educated
about the aging potential of (certain) Marlborough SBs. And then, of
course, we have white Bdx as the classic exemplar (though the semillon
might have something to do with that, too).


>
>
>>1989 Ch. Montrose St. Estephe
>
>
> No brett?

Not a trace. If anything, this wine was squeaky clean. Now, I am
notoriously Brett-tolerant, but Jean is not and she agreed with my
assessment, so I think that we can safely conclude that this one bottle,
at least, was fairly free of taint.


>
>
>>2005 Joseph Drouhin St. Veran
>>good year like '05 in a region like St. Veran. This is Chardonnay from
>>the Beaujolais region,
>
>
> Sounds great. I always thought this was Maconnais, thanks for new
> info.
>

My apologies to you, sibeer and all readers for a sloppily worded
description. As usual, Joseph has it right: St. Véran is a weird AOC
that has two distinct and unconnected subunits (north and south) that
straddle Pouilly-Fuissé AOC. Additionally, while it is entirely within
the Mconnais department (but not the canton), the southern subunit is
also located within the boundaries of Beaujolais AOC. This includes the
communities of St. Vérand, Leynes, Chnes and Chaintre. Lest you think
that I am channeling Claude Kolm or Alan Urschinko, I will note that
this information is gleaned from my excellent wine atlases by Hachette
and H. Johnson.

More to the point, I have no idea where Drouhin's sources lie within St.
Véran, so let's call it a Mconnais wine and have done with it. Sorry!

Mark Lipton


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