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| 2GrandCru Crew |
Pierre Gimonnet, Special Club, Chouilly, 2014
A Special Club that represents a first for Gimonnet: a single village cuvée from Chouilly, a Grand Cru village in the Côte des Blancs. It's vibrant and tense, with chalky aromas and hints of mushrooms. It's still young and one dimensional on the palate, more about focus than breadth and complexity. It did start to develop, but one glass was not enough to follow through.
Vincent Pinard, Pinot Noir, Sancerre Rouge, Charlouise, 2017
Extracted and muscular, with notes of leather, this is not easily recognizable as Pinot and, in a blind tasting, many would confuse it with a North Rhone. It resolves into a loose, lithe form in time. I think it will always be fleshy and muscular, but two-three years will bring out the Pinot in it.
La Maison Romane, Pommard Premier Cru, Largilliere, 2010
This rarely-seen Premier Cru has a distinctive, complex nose, very Pommard, with forest floor aromas and hints of spices. The palate is a little tired and short, on the sweet side. I drank my other bottle a year ago and I noted that, even though Oronce Beller's wines had no track record for aging it when I bought it, that bottle was nuanced enough to provide a lot of pleasure. Although this bottle improves with air, there's not enough development going on to provide hope for the same kind of quality.
Carina Fontana, Barbera d’Alba, 2017
No idea who this producer here. The most Google came up with was: "Mario Fontana represents the sixth generation of Fontana family winemakers in the hills of Barolo. He founded Cascina Fontana in 1995, which is comprised of four hectares of vines in Castiglione Falletto." Good acidity here, a very nice, earthy/truffle-y nose, the kind of wine where terroir trumps grape (one I have no real love for, by the way).
Delas, Cornas, Chante-Pedrix, 2005
Tom Stevenson used to call this a bargain basement Cornas: always very good, always relatively inexpensive. Not in Israel, mind you. I drank a bottle six years ago that cost 350 NIS on discount and it was a bit underwhelming even then. Age hasn't improved it. It's on the ripe, sweet side, but balanced given that. Age has given the black pepper, smoke and olive aromas more prominence.
Sometimes evenings have the dynamics of a western. If the Maison Romane and the Delas played the role of a wagon train surrounded by Indians, along came the cavalry in the form of two great Bordeaux.
Chateau Palmer, Margaux 3me Cru, 1996
Among the great appellations of the Medoc, Margaux always comes off as the beautiful woman who puts on more makeup and jewelry than her cronies, but you forgive her the slight excess because it was executed with great taste and she is, indeed, a beauty. This special brand of beauty makes a a very obvious first impression here in the Palmer when you sniff that compact, sexy cloud of black currants and spices - and break into a smile. Actually most clarets from a decent vintage would make you smile, but this is an especially classic house and an especially heart-warming vintage, the last 'simply great' vintage before the utterly magnificent 2000 and before Bordeaux blue chip marketing after the turn of the century took the wines and the prices out of the grasp of the everyman. It's a classic claret, still big and so young that its fruitiness hasn't yet been toned down.
Chateau Lynch-Bages, Pauillac 5me Cru, 1996
I guess Pauillac (and Saint Estephe) are the are the yang to Margaux' yin: elegantly masculine in the best vintages, muscularly elegant in the simply good ones. Lynch-Bages, this evening, is the more savory wine, the fruit already tempered and tamed by age, with smoke and iron on the nose. A very complex classic.
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