With vegetarian tacos on Wednesday, the 2005 Cairnbrae "The Stones"
Sauvignon Blanc (Marlborough). Seemed a little softer on the acid front
than previous two vintages, a pleasant but innocuous NZ SB- soft
gooseberry fruit , ok but not with a lot of character. I'm a little
disappointed. But stop, hey, what's that sound? It's the Cairnbrae
opening up on night two. As an apertif before Thursday dinner, the
gooseberry is there, but a touch more tart and tingly, with a little
hot green pepper on the palate and some mineral on the finish. A B-
morphs into a solid B

The main course Thursday is beef jantaboon, a stir fry dish of
marinated beef with fresh rice noodles and bean sprouts, served with
baby bok choy with mushrooms. I opened the 2004 Terres Dorees
(J.P.Brun) Fleurie, and it was a big hit with my favorite audience,
Betsy. She liked the little strip label, but liked the wine even more.
She thought it was a good match, and she was right (she used Italian
peppers, not as spicy as if she had used birdseye chiles). The cherry
fruit was sweet, had just enough tartness to keep it lively. Balanced
acidity, a bit bigger than one might expect, clean and minerally and
.....yummy. Got better through meal, interested seeing what it will be
like after two nights in fridge (tonight is a Bordeaux offline). A
strong B+ for night one.

Grade disclaimer: I'm a very easy grader, basically A is an excellent
wine, B a good wine, C mediocre. Anything below C means I wouldn't
drink at a party where it was only choice. Furthermore, I offer no
promises of objectivity, accuracy, and certainly not of
consistency.

DaleW wrote:
> With vegetarian tacos on Wednesday, the 2005 Cairnbrae "The Stones"
> Sauvignon Blanc (Marlborough). Seemed a little softer on the acid front
> than previous two vintages, a pleasant but innocuous NZ SB- soft
> gooseberry fruit , ok but not with a lot of character. I'm a little
> disappointed. But stop, hey, what's that sound? It's the Cairnbrae
> opening up on night two. As an apertif before Thursday dinner, the
> gooseberry is there, but a touch more tart and tingly, with a little
> hot green pepper on the palate and some mineral on the finish. A B-
> morphs into a solid B

OK, Dale. You've written about this wine several times, yet I have
*never* seen it in my market, where we get just about every other NZ SB
known to man. Who's the importer?

>
> The main course Thursday is beef jantaboon, a stir fry dish of
> marinated beef with fresh rice noodles and bean sprouts, served with
> baby bok choy with mushrooms. I opened the 2004 Terres Dorees
> (J.P.Brun) Fleurie, and it was a big hit with my favorite audience,
> Betsy. She liked the little strip label, but liked the wine even more.
> She thought it was a good match, and she was right (she used Italian
> peppers, not as spicy as if she had used birdseye chiles). The cherry
> fruit was sweet, had just enough tartness to keep it lively. Balanced
> acidity, a bit bigger than one might expect, clean and minerally and
> ....yummy. Got better through meal, interested seeing what it will be
> like after two nights in fridge (tonight is a Bordeaux offline). A
> strong B+ for night one.

Have you had the '04 Brun L'Ancien? How'd you compare it to the
Fleurie? I've heard enough about the Fleurie that I'm probably going to
have to place another order with CSW.

Mark Lipton

I'll look when I get home, but 90% certain I was looking at a Skurnk
strip on the Cairnbrae.

The Fleurie is a bit burlier than the Ancien, but cut from same cloth.