Sydney, Abu Dhabi, Frankfurt
Tasted Sunday, September 9, 2018 - Friday, September 14, 2018 by graemeg with 165 views
The Sydney Etihad Business Lounge is intimate but comfortable, with a fair selection of food & drink.
Abu Dhabi is enormous, of course, and everything you'd expect as far as food goes (but no bacon for breakfast!), although the wine offerings aren't much better than remote Sydney.
In Frankfurt they use Lufthansa Business which has the usual dire selection of industrial swill. Really only one drinkable effort here. Lucky that the queues in the airport were so long I only had a few minutes to kill.
Fairly decent offerings in the air. I usually go for the un-named 'Sommelier's Selection' just to see what pot-luck brings me; often some partly oxidised South African curio, or some other batch of about-to-expire wine. Even in 1st class there are no classed growth Bdx though; chatting with a fellow passenger in the A380 round bar he had a dusty 09 Haut Laroque (I had a sip); you wouldn't buy a 1st class ticket for the wine!
2017 McPherson Wines Sauvignon Blanc Three Vineyards
Australia, South Eastern
(9/9/2018)
{screwcap, %11.5} Steely nose & palate. Smoke. Seashells & brine. Quasi-sancerre palate; light-bodied, steely in character with medium acid but a short finish. Clean and crisp, refreshing, no more (Etihad Business Lounge Sydney).
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2017 Burns & Fuller Chardonnay Adelaide Hills
Australia, South Australia, Mount Lofty Ranges, Adelaide Hills
(9/9/2018)
{screwcap, 13%} Subtle woodsmoke and grapefruit flavours and aromas. Lightweight palate, rather anonymous. Watery texture. Low key wine in every respect, to the point of blandness (Etihad Business Lounge Sydney).
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2017 Sileni Pinot Noir Satyr
New Zealand, North Island, Hawke's Bay
(9/9/2018)
{screwcap, 12%} Gentle sour cherry with a stalky note. Clean light palate, tart, with high acid and lowish tannins. Light body, little oak. Faint cherry and plum flavours. Low key in every way but otherwise sound (Etihad Business Lounge Sydney).
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2016 Tellurian Shiraz Redline
Australia, Victoria, Central Victoria, Heathcote
(9/9/2018)
{screwcap, 14.5%} Sweet blackberry jam. Plums too. Furry and voluptuous, with soft dusty tannins and medium acid. Palate isn’t quite up to the nose; it’s got a high-yield quality to it; an industrial thinness if you like. Thanks to the soft structure, it’s no more than medium-bodied, with a rather transient finish, just hinting at hollow sweet fruit. Bistro wine at best (Etihad Business Lounge Sydney).
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2016 Alkoomi Cabernet Merlot
Australia, Western Australia, South West Australia, Frankland River
(9/9/2018)
{screwcap, 14.5%} Liquorice, plum, chocolate, currant. Palate has plum, currant and a bit of malt. Some coconut oak too. But it’s still a bit hollow despite the merlot, with a mid-palate dip. Low powdery tannins. Finish is dry but on the short side. Medium-body; seems to have insufficient stuffing for the alcohol level, hinting at very ripe but high-yield grapes. So-so. Another bistro job (Etihad Business Lounge Sydney).
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NV Jean-Pierre Marniquet Champagne Cuvée de Printemps
France, Champagne
(9/9/2018)
Plenty of yeast here. Strong autolysis character to the flavours, but also fairly coarse bubbles. Distinctly foamy in fact. The palate is light-bodied, dry, fresh and crisp, relying more on acid than much on the way of fruit. Never-the-less, a strawberry tint to the flavours, light as they are. Sour, dry, crisp finish. Seems like it would benefit somewhat from cellaring (Etihad Business Lounge Sydney).
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2013 Bodegas As Laxas Rías Baixas Laxas
Spain, Galicia, Rías Baixas
(9/10/2018)
{screwcap, 12.5%} Deep yellow. Smells quite aged. Seashells, brine, machine oil. Developed palate too; with broad melon flavours, low-medium acidity, and a dry but short finish tending towards the flabby. Better younger (Etihad Business Lounge T3 Abu Dhabi).
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2012 Le Baron de Malleret
France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Haut-Médoc
(9/10/2018)
{cork} Fairly closed nose; hint of herbs, nothing more. The palate has soft jubey fruit; blackberry, plum. There are ultra-fine medium tannins; it actually coats the tongue rather nicely. The drawback is very short length. Workmanlike at best; not for keeping (Etihad Business Lounge T3 Abu Dhabi).
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2014 Acústic Celler Priorat ritme
Spain, Catalunya, Priorat
(9/10/2018)
{cork} Closed nose (from a freshly opened bottle). Hint of dark chocolate, malt; no more. The palate is inky-tasting, with medium-high powdery tannins and lowish acidity. Finishes astringent & a bit warm (although this is very much room temperature in Abu Dhabi, which makes it around 24C by my guess; much too warm. Not obviously oaky; the tannins seem largely grape-derived; it’s medium/full-bodied but has – as do so many commercial offerings – a rather short finish; just a memory of the alcohol, no more. Second bottle (on the way back to Sydney), already opened, was smokier & more open, a bit less strident (Etihad Business Lounge T3 Abu Dhabi).
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2016 Bouvet-Ladubay Saphir Brut Vintage
France, Loire Valley, Anjou-Saumur, Saumur
(9/14/2018)
{cork, 12.5%} Apple/lime juice nose. Light-bodied, but plenty of action from the vivacious bubbles. Flavours tend toward the lemon/citrus spectrum, the acid is fairly low, and there seems to be a fair bit of sugar still in this despite the ‘Brut’ tag. The finish is rather short and front-palate due to these structural attributes. Not more-ish. (Lufthansa Business Lounge Frankfurt T1)
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NV Schloss Reinhartshausen Insel Mariannenaue Secco
Germany, Rheingau
(9/14/2018)
{screwcap, 11%} Sour melon nose. Medium sized bubbles on palate, fairly aggressive, but the confected shertbert flavours all sit right on the tip of tongue. The sugar (I’d call this off-dry) gives it light/medium weight but shortens the finish a bit it seems, despite what seems like medium acidity. (Lufthansa Business Lounge Frankfurt T1)
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2017 Vignobles Canet Vin de Pays d'Oc Beaux Lieux
France, Languedoc Roussillon, Vin de Pays d'Oc
(9/14/2018)
{screwcap, 13.5%} Cough mixture and cherries. There are some very artificial tasting spicy red fruit flavours, All the length of finish seems to come from a bit of sugar. The palate is low-key, light-bodied, low in acid and pretty dull all-round. Clean but boring. Less a wine than a fruit drink with bonus alcohol. (Lufthansa Business Lounge Frankfurt T1)
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2015 Bodegas El Coto Rioja Crianza
Spain, La Rioja, Rioja
(9/14/2018)
{cork, 13.5%} Sweet liquorice & coconut aromas. Conveys the concept of Rioja well, even at this price. The palate has gentle furry vanilla/coconut oak tannins, low level, with sweet strawberry fruit. So sweetly-accents you wonder about residual sugar here. Soft acid, but a medium length finish. Hasn’t the structure for aging though. (Lufthansa Business Lounge Frankfurt T1)
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2017 Riff Pinot Grigio
Italy, Delle Venezie
(9/14/2018)
(12.5%, screwcap) Gentle pear aromas. Youthful palate with soft pear/apricot flavours. Low acid, no oak. Has no real finish at all. Slightly alcoholic fruit juice, although at least it’s not sweet. A bit like a mildly-flavoured water. (Lufthansa Business Lounge Frankfurt T1)
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2015 Errazuriz Chardonnay Max Reserva
Chile, Casablanca Valley
(9/14/2018)
{screwcap} Lots of oak & butter. The palate has a fair bit of slithery oak texture, less tannic than buttery. Actually light on for grape flavours; it’s a bit neutral with a bit of melon. Light/medium body; not as heavy as the nose seems to indicate. Dry, with all the (short-lived) finish on the front palate (Etihad Business Lounge T3 Abu Dhabi).
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