Quinta Poço do Lobo (Caves São João), Bairrada Reserva Branco, Arinto, 2017
We started out with a major surprise - a white Bairrada made by someone outside of the Pato family! I spent a week in Portugal three years ago, scouring the wine shops of Lisbon and Porto in a vain search for something like that. I guess you can always count on Yair Haidu to come through. The wine itself was wonderful, albeit very, very young, with a touch of reduction (matchsticks), flint and summer fruits. Great acidity, with the fruit hanging back and making for perhaps too lean of a figure. Haidu says these age for decades, and I can't argue with a man who was actually able to find a wine like this, so based on that tidbit of knowledge, I'd say it will gain body and composure in three-five years. Wonderful.
On a side note, I nailed Portugal blind but guessed Dao. On a further side note, this label is owned by the more illustrious brand, Caves São João, the kind of detail that wreaks havoc on my attempts to label these posts.
Last side note here: Arinto is the name of the grape and it's my first encounter with it.
Castello di Neive, Barbaresco Riserva, Santo Stefano, 1974
We are all aware of the sad fact that, with wines this old, it's more about finding a good bottle than finding a good wine. And this was a good bottle, indeed. Maybe not great, but in fine shape, a joy to drink and, more so, to sniff its magical nose, still full of black cherries, laden with rust, tar and smoke. The flavors echo the nose and even if the finish is a little short, this is yet another bottle I would have been able to finish alone. It seems like the wine would have kept it shape however long it would have taken me to finish the bottle.
A couple of interesting points for lovers of Piedmont lore and trivia. Santo Stefano is a prime vineyard in the Albesani cru, which Bruno Giacosa made famous. Giacosa sourced the grapes from the Stupino family, who own Castello di Neive. They started bottling the wine under their own label in 1967, just seven years before they made this wine. The bottle is 720 cc - go figure!
Domaine Hubert Lamy, Chassagne-Montrachet, Le Concis du Champs, 2017
Hubert Lamy is yet another beloved name. Although this is a Chassagne - the first I've yet tasted from Lamy - it continues the style I enjoy and associate with Lamy, a seamless marriage of elegance and understated power, fruit (lime and apples, here) and minerals. Here, too, I find a touch of reduction that only adds to the thrill. Le Concis du Champs is a village lieux-dit, but it has the breed on a Premier Cru.
Chateau Talbot, Saint-Julien 4me Cru, 1973
I never had more than a handful of bottles of Talbot. Nonetheless, they were all well-made but underwhelming: stodgy, foursquare, safe - and bretty. Same with this 1973, where we have to deal with a problematic year, as well.
Jamet, Cote Rotie, 2013
Jamet, on the other hand, offers all the excitement I could ever crave, even though here, too, there is a problematic year to contend with - according to Haidu, you really can't tell it from the wine itself, which was very beautiful and clear. Young, but vibrant and very well balanced , black fruit decked with pepper and violets, this is the kind of wine that showcases why Cote Rotie, when not smothered by oak, is the most feminine of the North Rhone appellations.
Niepoort, Duoro, Charme, 2018
Another name that I'm a fan of. Dirk Niepoort oversees an empire that produces tens of ports as well as dozens of table wines from all over Portugal, all scrupulously and attentively made. The Charmes is Dirk's hommage to Burgundy (and not the only such hommage in the portfolio) and at its best shows the same silky texture as a Premier Cru red. While this bottle suffered from youth, a warm serving temperature, as well as following the Jamet at the end of dinner, the quality of the black fruit, the balance and the smokey notes that hint at its potential development - all bode well for a future that could well carry it to its fifteenth birthday, at least.
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