An eclectic group of wines for this month’s lunch!


2002 Jean Dauvissat Chablis 1er Cru Vaillons Vielles Vignes – light
colour, steely clean nose and feel, nice length. A good one.

2003 Willow Heights Reserve Chardonnay (Niagara) – even lighter colour
with a lime nose that quickly morphed into a coconut and vanilla
confection. Finished with lively acidity. Very good.

1998 Dom. La Roquette CNduP – this Brunier wine had a clearly Rhone
nose, slight heat, and was full flavoured and had good length,
finishing with quite soft tannin. This suave wine is now ready for
prime time, which means I had better try and locate my half case!

1997 Rocca di Montegrassi Geremia – this Tuscan IGT is mostly
sangiovese. Showing medium colour and an excellent fruit driven nose,
it had juicy fruit on palate and a nice long finish. Drinks as well
as it ever will right now.

2000 Sant’Elena Tato – another IGT, this time from Venezia Giulia, and
a really hard wine to try and place. Dark, with an interesting soya
nose with green elements, this cabernet/merlot wine was really big in
the mouth, and ended sweetly with an unusual burnt toast thing at the
end. Nice.

2001 Geografico Ferraiolo – yet another IGT, this time a blend of
sangio and cab, again from Tuscany. Unfortunately this one had a
stewed nose and sharp taste, obviously heat damaged.

1970 Cos d’Estournel – it was hard to pick this out as a 1970 as it
lacked the weight you expect from that vintage as well as some of the
fruit, but it was obviously Bordeaux from the nose, medium weight and
ready to roll, with decent length and soft tannins. Picking the
vintage was tough and we were wondering if it might be a slightly
dried out 83, or perhaps an 88.

1990 Leoville Poyferre – I opened this because of a Commanderie de
Bordeaux dinner earlier in the week where 2 out of 3 bottles had shown
as flat and lifeless. We had better luck with this one, as was
immediately evident from the nose, which had cocoa and cassis. Full
flavoured with good concentration anf flavour intensity as well as
length. This wasn’t the absolute best showing I’ve seen with this
wine, but it certainly passed muster for us.

1998 Burrowing Owl Cabernet Sauvignon – this was a real surprise. I
had often bought wines from this BC winery back when California
winemaker Bill Dyer was responsible for winemaking there, but once he
left, quality took a significant nose dive and we tend to pay much
less attention to their product in recent years. This was one of the
old classics, and showed beautifully. Dark with a sweet fig and briar
nose, together on palate and with decent length. delighted to find I
supposedly have a half case of this somewhere – must get to it!

2002 Quinta da Terrugem (Allentejo) – this baby had some nice spice in
the nose, with a hint of green, very tannin still, with chocolate on
palate. A very international style Michel Roland wine, good but almost
impossible to detect any sense of place.


2000 Quinta da Carolina – this one was an oddball! A wine made from
Portuguese grapes in the Douro, by Californians Jerry Luper and his
wife, probably more familiar to many as making Cabs in Napa in the 70s
and 80s.Ripe nose, with a bit of heat in the mouth and soft tannins,
it is a creditable wine. I googled them and found an item from last
year indicating that they had a hard time getting help and were
selling out - no idea if that happened or not.