1/14/2017 - beatles Likes this wine:

A beast, yes, alcohol, yes, but the richesse is kept in balance with an incredible minerality and bright vibrancy; even at the end of a long Pégau-tasting this stands out as a different animal, something else, somehting grand.

12/25/2016 - JeffGMorris Likes this wine:

From 375ml. Opened at the request of a friend who asked me for an opinion on whether to open one of his last bottles now or hold. I'm not sure I have an answer as I'd say get enough to do both! Definitely the next coming of the 1994, this is starting to shed some of its baby fat and show itself. While still primary in many ways this is beginning to show its own character. While the 1994 changes to dry on the palate entry, this wine hits the front of the palate still sweet and then quickly changes to dry in the mouth. A fascinating wine that will be a pleasure to watch over the next 2 decades. 50+14+14+9+9=96

11/7/2016 - David Paris (dbp) wrote:

15 vintages of Jean-Louis Chave Hermitage, Rouge and Blanc (E&R Wine Shop, Portland OR): Interestingly rich and heavy tobacco notes on the nose. Rich and larger tones than the prior wines, but that tobacco note is just so lovely. Soft soil notes enter the palate first, showing some mild tannins. Rich in texture with fine grained tannins. The flavors on the palate are pretty tight right now... while those tannins in the mouth are fine grained, if you hold this wine on your tongue for 20+ seconds they really begin taking over and pounding your mouth, more so than even the younger wines. Rich acid and massive tannin dial up on the large, rich finish. This is a massive wine. So much structure and beautiful fruit poking through, but it is just so tight. This needs so much more time. It's just so tannic today that it's not as enjoyable as it wants to be. This will be a beautiful, elegant wine, but I think it still needs decades. 91+++

5/18/2016 - JeffGMorris Likes this wine:

Dinner with Salil at home. The only thing wrong with this wine was it's placement in the lineup. After 2 dry Rieslings with meats and cheeses we had this before starting to cook dinner. Originally scheduled to have with the semi-spicy Indian dinner where it probably would have shown better. Dark Amber in color as it has been almost from the start showing the heavy botrytis influence ( I believe this has the most residual sugar of the 4 '94 VT Pinot Gris' by a large distance if I remember correctly ). Great apricot and mirabelle flavors mix with the horseradish typical flavor of botrytis and leads into a very long and lingering finish. 50+13+13+9+9=94

5/18/2016 - salil wrote:

A crash course in Zind Humbrecht at Jeff and Dena's (Raleigh, NC): Hey, a non-ZH interloper! No surprise that this is astounding - unbelievably light and delicate, yet so powerful with palate-staining intensity. There's no sense of botrytis here - just an array of bright Meyer lemon, candied limes, green apples, and riper tropical fruits with gentle honeyed and floral accents. So bright and focused with tremendous acidity beneath balancing the sweetness, and astounding length. This is incredible.

5/18/2016 - salil wrote:

A crash course in Zind Humbrecht at Jeff and Dena's (Raleigh, NC): An astounding wine that's massively sweet and laden with botrytis, and still somehow manages to show the clear signature of both the grape and site. The Rangen peaty and smoky fragrance comes through in spades, and beneath all the peat and smoke are layers of ripe lychee, apricot marmalade, honey, and more flamboyant Gewurztraminer spice and florality. Like the '94 Goldert VT that preceded this, it's a high wire act of tremendous sweetness and acidity, and again the balance is impeccable with everything coming together very seamlessly on the palate, and remarkable length.

5/18/2016 - salil wrote:

A crash course in Zind Humbrecht at Jeff and Dena's (Raleigh, NC): Astounding wine that reminds me of some of the HGS-era Catoirs in terms of its sheer complexity and the balance between sweetness and acidity. It's impossible to catalogue all the flavours here - there's all sorts of bright floral and spicy scents, bright lychee and citrus fruits, honey, rosewater, and so much else going on here. Each sip starts out with tremendous sweetness up front, but then the acidity kicks in as well as a more lower-toned, burnished element that comes through on the back end, and it finishes almost savoury with amazing length.

5/18/2016 - salil wrote:

A crash course in Zind Humbrecht at Jeff and Dena's (Raleigh, NC): On so many other evenings this would have been the wine of the night or at least the Riesling of the night. Such an incredible wine with immense power and intensity to the ripe apple and citrus fruit flavours, and an array of honeyed, mineral, smoky, and more mature petrol and burnished notes augmenting the bright fruit here. The palate is a total high wire act - massive sweetness buffered by tremendous acidity, and somehow everything's in a perfectly balanced package with tremendous length. Fantastic.

5/18/2016 - salil wrote:

A crash course in Zind Humbrecht at Jeff and Dena's (Raleigh, NC): Talk about a unicorn - I had no idea this wine even existed. I was very excited to try it once Jeff told me about it, and it more than lived up to the hype and expectations. There's such an amazing array of flavours here, with sweeter peach, tropical fruit and honeyed notes up front that give way to more savoury earthy, smoky, and quinine notes that emerge on the finish. With air it seems to become more focused and brighter as a high toned citrus zest note emerges, and the earthy and mineral character on the palate becomes more intense. Spectacular.

5/18/2016 - salil wrote:

A crash course in Zind Humbrecht at Jeff and Dena's (Raleigh, NC): Astounding wine. The aromatics are so compelling - an array of vivid smoky and peaty flavours reminiscent of an Islay scotch (minus the alcohol/spirity character), and an intense stoniness that suggests this may have come from a rock quarry rather than grapes. A real Soil to Glass Transfer wine. Beneath all the peat, smoke, and minerality is a core of bright pear and Meyer lemon fruit that still feels incredibly fresh and vibrant. There's amazing intensity of flavour on the palate, but at the same time remarkable lightness and focus with a sense of refreshment that makes me keep coming back. Easily one of the best Rieslings I've ever had.

5/18/2016 - salil wrote:

A crash course in Zind Humbrecht at Jeff and Dena's (Raleigh, NC): A blockbuster of a wine that feels more like an SGN than a VT. The complexity here is staggering - it's packed with an array of tropical fruits, sweeter honeyed and apricot marmalade notes, and more savoury earthy, burnished, and smoky flavours. The depth here is remarkable, but it feels a touch heavy on the palate and while the sweetness is very well balanced and never cloying, I did find myself wishing this had the extra jolt of acidity that the other VTs showed.

5/18/2016 - salil wrote:

A crash course in Zind Humbrecht at Jeff and Dena's (Raleigh, NC): A remarkable contrast with the '89 Rangen - the nose on this suggests something sweeter with bright quince, peach, and light floral notes augmented by more mature savoury and burnished flavours, but the palate is completely dry, though packed with ripe apple and citrus fruit flavours over a base of stone and earthy minerality. It feels totally seamless on the palate, though remarkably different from the Rangen in texture - whereas that's all about cut and focus, this has a softer, almost pillowy feel on the palate. Wonderful wine, though perhaps I didn't give this enough attention with the jawdropping '89 Rangen alongside.

5/15/2016 - Bordeaux_Jon wrote:

From a half bottle. I think this was off, but I'm not sure. The nose was dominated by what I think is an oxidized soy sauce aroma. I've smelled it a lot in old Barolos and you might called it mushrooms or truffles if you are generous. There were other features, oak, vanilla, and maybe balsamic vinegar. Others like it more. The palate was a bit weak and acidic though.

4/21/2016 - salil wrote:

Monumental Auslese. So painfully young, yet so complex - though this was double-decanted several hours before dinner, and then a third time afterwards. Despite the decants, a whiff of sulfur and sponti yeast funk still lingers on the nose, but beneath that there's an array of classic Mosel fruit flavours over a slate/stony mineral base, with the savoury and mineral flavours only getting more intense and vivid with air. The balance and length here are spectacular, and I'm glad I have a lot more in the cellar. This is already spectacular now, but I can't begin to imagine what this may turn into with a couple more decades (at least)!

3/28/2016 - LW31 wrote:

Bottle was correct (and perfectly stored since release) but a bit further advanced at this stage than it should be. Dark honey color. Wonderful texture and viscosity and classic petrol nose, but mid-palate was short and finish was unexciting. Not bad but not what this wine should be.

3/18/2016 - salil wrote:

Mostly-Riesling jeeb with Jeff and Dena Morris visiting NYC (Royal Seafood, NYC): This is spectacular. A powerhouse of a Riesling - almost bone dry with incredibly fresh, vibrant pear and lemon fruit at the core, augmented by an array of stony, saline, smoke, and peaty flavours - almost reminiscent of some Islay single malts (minus the spirity notes). There's remarkable power and intensity to the flavours, yet it feels remarkably light and finessed on the palate, never heavy nor austere as I find with so many dry Rieslings. Amazing wine.

1/30/2016 - hanasowner wrote:

Pop and pour from magnum...muted nose that opened up after an hour or so...some charred meat and dark fruit off the nose, but very short on the smooth finish...a "crowd pleaser" wine for sure, but nothing extraordinary.

10/15/2012 - Dale M wrote:

What really struck me about this 16 year old Huet was exactly that, the age, or to be more specific, how the percieved lack thereof. If served blind, I think I could have pegged it as a Moelleux all right, and perhaps foolishly optimistic, even a Huet. But man, this tasted as if had just been bottled! Pure driven notes and flavors of honey drizzled apples, limestone, and powerful acidity made quite the palate impression. Pretty resilient and long on the finish. Easy to see how people drinking these from 40’s and 50’s are in for a good time, it would seem that Chenin can just plain go the distance.

1/27/2016 - Papies wrote:

Blind tasted with no decanting.
Andreas who had this blind said within a few minutes Mouline or Chave early 2000. The signature toasty meat coupled with elegance and purity was the key factor. This is truly a majestic wine at the start of its drinking window and can only but improve. We could be talking about this for a long time. 97 for now but could easily be 100 in a few years.

1/23/2016 - Rieslingfan wrote:

Oh my gosh is this good. Vibrant fruit with a coating of vanilla infused honey that just goes on forever. It has the richness of Auslese, but no trace of heaviness. It is just a haunting, ethereal goodness. There is still tons of time for this wine to develop, but it is so delicious now!

12/31/2015 - beachbum Likes this wine:

this note is from a well stored one owner bottle. paired with a tardieu-laurent CR of the same vintage. Still 5 (or 10) years away from peak, but beautiful to drink. The hermitage was awesome, it was tightly furled with blasts of cherry and super clean black fruit. but what I could not get away from was the underlying granite that gave the structure along with the texture - pure silk. Was like sucking on the Canadian Shield. This will be an epic bottle someday, the others voted for the CR, which was more mature, tonight.

12/30/2015 - renapen Does not like this wine:

Wine was corked. ruined

12/30/2015 - tomlbs Likes this wine:

First time tasting a Quart de Chaume. A huge nose of honey, orange peel, dried apricot, baked apples and spice. This is very sweet but the sweet fruit, spices, some minerals are nicely balanced with acidity. Every sip is creamy and juicy with a long follow through! What a wonderful wine that in my opinion should age for at least 10 more years. We wish their was more in our cellar!

12/25/2015 - jbaron wrote:

Nice nose tonight, but the wine seems monolithically sweet. Hard to square with my previous note.

12/22/2015 - Rieslingfan wrote:

Same provenance as a delicious bottle from back in May, 2015, and similarly tasty. Lots of pineapple and other tropical fruits, and a bright, mineral backbone holding everything together. This is very early maturity for this wine, like a precocious 19 year old.

12/1/2015 - indiscriminate palate wrote:

AP# 2 576 511 23 04. On open, this was dominated by sulfur, with a very faint nose, though the palate showed some tropical and stone fruit concentration. Eventually, with enough air, the nose began to show some sweet tropical fruits, with guava and some orange/citrus. The palate showed rich sweet pineapple, guava, stone fruit, and some sweetened lime pith. A good deal of acid; a good deal of sugar; but some balance issues. Overall, I was not enamored of this wine--there was a lot to like, but a lot to question, as well. Beautiful fruit on the palate, but intermittently sweet and hollow, with the nose also evolving from showing little but sulfur to a rich--but simple--nose. This may have quite a bit of potential (I'm not qualified to judge its evolution), but right now, this was quite good, but not great.

12/8/2015 - ewsds wrote:

Surprisingly lively and tasty after 10 years. It has developed the classic petroleum characteristics of an aged German Riesling, but it still has the structure and body to deliver after 10 years. A very pleasant discovery and glad to have tried it. Delicious.

10/16/2015 - Paul S wrote:

Zind-Humbrecht Clos Windsbuhl Dinner (Mitzo, Grand Park Orchard): Lovely – a nice way to end the night. If anything, my favourite wines from Zind-Humbrecht’s Clos Windsbuhl plot (where Riesling and Pinot Gris are also grown) have been the Gewurztraminers. Something about the limestone and high altitude of the vineyard seems to lend an elegance and verve to a low-acid grape that can, if not handled carefully, lead to stodgy wines, especially on the VT and SGN levels. This was a fine example of how a good Gewurztraminer VT is made, even in a warm vintage. It had such a lovely, perfumed nose, with classic notes of lychees and roses along with late harvest accents of honey and toasted spices. The palate shared some of that lovely, rich, fleshiness promised on the nose, with peaches and lychees and dried longans at the fore; but it was also surprisingly fresh and light on its feet, with a nice touch of acidity and spice and minerality cutting through the sweeter fruit on the midpalate and into the neat finish with its hint of rose petals. Very good, and this should develop nicely over the next 5-10 years, maybe more, as well.

12/5/2015 - Burgundy Al wrote:

Eleventh Annual White Truffle Dinner (Chez Weber - Chicago IL): Open several hours before serving. Pristine bottle from my cellar that was in perfect condition. Great fresh red berries throughout with floral notes, licorice and cloves. Very powerful. Tastier and brighter than the Sori Tildin 1982 in the next glass, but not as nuanced. I'd have thought this much younger if served blind.

11/22/2015 - salil wrote:

Heat damaged. Dark gold in colour, and rather flat on the palate. Still shows some of the honeyed and floral elements I'd expect from this wine, but the fruit has a stewed character to it, instead of the freshness and vibrancy that I'd expect from a '90 Prum. So sad. (Acquired from the recent Chambers German cellar.)

11/21/2015 - Rieslingfan wrote:

Nearly three years since my last bottle, and this has blossomed into a richer and more flavorful wine than at any time since initial release. Smoky, peachy and light cherry elements dominate the nose on opening, then are supplemented by a squirt of citrus (Orange) and brown spices. The palate is medium to full bodied, where it had been what I considered a "small wine" the last many years. Bright acidity balances the ample sweetness, and the finish is long, long. Best showing ever for this bottling and quite delicious.

12/31/2012 - JeffGMorris wrote:

New Year's Eve at Buku with Steve & Barb. Could there be a better wine to end the year with? From 375ml. Reddish-amber in color. Oranges and tangerines mix with some of the Jebsal inner mouthfeel. The wine hits the palate with a thickness that lasts a millisecond and then explodes into a endless dissolving of pure and rich fruit that would last all evening if you weren't so compelled to take another sip. This is truly the master at his finest. Perfect now and likely for the next 100 years. I'm too stunned by the greatness of this wine to come up with additional words. 50+15+15+10+10=100

9/19/2015 - BradKNYC wrote:

Chenin Fest: 28 Loire Chenin Blancs from 1995 - 1997. (Don Rice's.): As great as the Le Haut-Lieu was, this was on another level. There's just so much more of everything here. Greater depth and length, more complexity, more vibrancy, more mineral notes and greater structure. The fruit here is more yellow in character than in the LHL and there's a wonderful marrowy texture to the mouthfeel and the wine continued to build and develop with air. Gorgeous now, but this is certainly built for distance. A+/A.

8/9/2015 - JeffGMorris Likes this wine:

AP #12-93. From 375ml. Dark gold to Amber in color, this wine was phenomenal. Loaded with aromas and flavors of quince, peach, oranges, caramel-coated green apples, tropical fruits and manuka honey. Clearly a dessert wine but plenty of acidity to wash it off the palate and leave an extremely long glow in the mouth that added a strong note of butterscotch. One of the finest dessert wines I've had and that says an lot given my penchant for sweet wines. Drinking on a perfect plateau right now but should easily drink very well for another 2-3 decades. 50+15+14+9.5+9.5=98

8/29/2015 - jkwoodward Likes this wine:

I think one of the newer vintage as the label said "rare liqueur tokay". Nonetheless, absolutely fantastic. Bursting with toffee, coffee, raisins and nuts, probably the longest finishing wine experienced to date. Can still tast it 10 or 15 min later I problem. Just awesome.

8/22/2015 - KenPlace wrote:

A lot of botrytis. Ginger, peach, apricot. Developing beautifully.

3/27/2015 - fcxj wrote:

Closed

8/7/2015 - MC2 Wines Likes this wine:

Sad to be finishing our last of these. Still some of the best pink bubbles from a value perspective that I've had. Light strawberry on the nose and palette. Very tasty.

8/5/2015 - Papies wrote:

Having recently tried the 2006 (Papies 91) we were looking forward in this. Caramel, dark colour. Well evolved and was a lot more of a sweet, rich wine than a dry wine with light residual sugar that the 2006 was. Needs to be chilled ( especially on a hot Athens night) and we were expecting quite a bit more acidity to balance out the wine. Still pretty solid wine but lacked vibrancy. Would served it move as a desert at this age and for general note would serve this youngish (3-4yrs) or well aged as a desert.

8/3/2015 - rharl wrote:

Most enjoyable, if a bit fruity-simple. Was starting to express a little more complexity after 90+ minutes, but not sure enough to justify a $75 price point. Will wait on my last '10 bottle to see if it evolves further.

7/21/2015 - sunnylea57 wrote:

DOA. Tired, soy-driven palate. Undrinkable.

7/11/2015 - BradKNYC wrote:

A wonderful evening of Chenin. (Chez Kravitz- Old Saybrook): Corked. A bottle I had a couple of months ago showed beautifully, though expressed the vintage's ripeness with slightly elevated alcohol and softer than usual acidity.

7/11/2015 - BradKNYC Likes this wine:

A wonderful evening of Chenin. (Chez Kravitz- Old Saybrook): Yes, a bit of a baby killer, but it was good to check in on it and I’m glad Marco brought it so I could let mine sleep longer. It was decanted about four or five hours prior to our having it. There was more brightness and youthfulness to this bottle than my past few samples. Still quite primary with an intense apricot character, a hit of marmalade, pineapple and quince that’s moving into the darker quince paste realm. Of course there’s a strong mineral streak with just a bit of marzipan. There’s a lot of residual sugar here, but the magic of this wine has always been the balance the acidity gives it. Just perfectly balanced. Really, it’s a benchmark wine for describing balance. A youthful, immortal wine. A+.

7/5/2015 - Rieslingfan wrote:

This took 24 hours before it opened up at all. When it did there were fireworks. Still amazingly youthful, showing berry, lime and peach fruit with a dusting of cinnamon spice. It's impressive how unevolved this is. The mid-palate intensity is off the charts, and carries right through the finish. I am very impressed, though I am beginning to wonder when these Christoffel Spatlese and Auslese wines from 2001 will begin to develop a few signs of maturity.

6/26/2015 - tcosgriff Likes this wine:

Very deep color with the typical "under" bouquet and flavor of a Barolo. As with other wines, it can be difficult to describes these "under notes," much like trying to describe how a lemon or orange tastes in terms of something else, a mission that we seem to undertake mainly with wine, often with comic results. While this is the best Barolo that I have ever tasted, it did not have any tar or rose scents, so often mentioned in descriptions of these wines. It had a core of iodine diluted with barbecue sauce. It was still quite tannic and acid, but softened and evolved with airing. It will probably improve with further time in bottle, but nowadays, fewer and fewer people want to buy a wine at 25 and drink it at 50. I personally think that Barolos and Barbarescos belong in the category of over-hyped wines, along with Burgundy wines. They are expensive because of relative scarcity and sacred status. Anyone drinking these wines feels a need to rate them highly, even when the emperor is wearing no clothes. In the case of Burgundy, lack of flavor is the problem, and in the case of Barolo, ever finding something in all the tannins and acidity. So don't be carried away by the hype. If you have seriously tried to educate your palate, don't think that it is inferior to other tasters. Don't be afraid to rate a Clerico Barolo so-so, or a La Tache as not very compelling.

6/11/2015 - Ramberg wrote:

Had this blind, no formal notes.
Took a while to pin it down, but ended up guessing on some overdone CndP fancy cuvee, and I was right.
This wine was not very good at all, in my opinion.
Only 2000 bottles made. (2000 too many...)
This was very, extremely Amarone like, with volatile and high alcohol, chocolate, sweet raisins, sweet and sticky figs, sweet and over ripe stewed and cooked dark jammy fruit and some herbs and medicine like aromas in the background.
Palate was very much the same.
Hot, with very high alcohol and completely stewed and cooked fruit, with some sweet chocolate on the finish.
Completely out of balance, and frankly, not good at all.
If you like Amarone wines, this might be something for you, but definitely nothing for me.
Avoid.
(79 – 81?)

5/27/2015 - dream Likes this wine:

Wow, I'm not likely to run into this wine again but what a fabulously balanced, complex and perfectly aged Riesling that's not in the dessert style. There is just the right touch of sweetness with wonderful flavors of green apples, mint, spice, sweet hay and a potpourri of other amazing things. This is balanced by still mouthwatering but subdued acidity which leads to this incredibly pure and complex finish. The fineness of the concentration here is just so perfect and satisfying. And then the fois gras terrine at Cafe Boulud was just an incredible food pairing with this juice. A deeply moving, authentic, classic yet utterly drinkable and balanced wine. It's just hard to explain how good and pure this is. At Rarities, Cafe Boulud.

5/26/2015 - ubercuvee wrote:

WINEMAKER'S NOTES: [Olivier Humbrecht]
Pinot-Gris Clos Jebsal 2008 Sélection de Grains Nobles Trie Speciale
Bottling date? /? Alcohol: under 5° alc; Residual sweetness: above 350 g/l (potential alcohol: 216° Oechslés or 33% potential alc); ? g/l H2SO4, pH: ?; Yields: 12 hl/ha; Optimum drinking period: ?/?; Average age of the vines: 25 years; Surface: 1.3 ha; Terroir: Grey marls and gypsum. South facing, very steep slope.
I do not believe that there is another vineyard in Alsace capable to so consistently produce late harvest style wines of such richness. It really is in the nature of the Clos Jebsal to allow noble rot and force us to harvest grapes with huge richness potential. The fantastic grey/green marl mixed with the gypsum rock (Jebsal is the place of Gypsum) provides the mineral frame and thevstructure necessary to carry so much richness and residual sugars. In exceptional years with great acidity potential like 2008, a normal SGN selection, without having to be more severe in selecting the berries, ends up with potential alcohol well above 30% (that is if all the sugar ferment through, the wine would have more than 30% alcohol). Something happens with the yeasts at such richness that the fermentation takes years to reach only 4 or 5% alcohol, leaving a huge sweetness in the wine. At these concentrations, the osmosis pressure on the membrane of the yeast is such that it must literally explode after a few days of existence. Imagine the state of our skin if we would be buried in a barrel of sugar! Today, this wine is still fermenting, very slowly, in two small 600l new casks. We have no idea when it will be finished!

2/2010: I am not sure if it makes sense to comment this wine today while still bubbling slowly. The aromas are still extremely sugary, honeyed, macerated green apples with some fermenting character. It is actually a very elegant nose but by far not accomplished yet. The palate is much more interesting today, even if fermentation isn’t finished, I doubt that there will be big changes before the end. The acidity must be unbelievable as it totally masters the sweetness. The mouth texture is very rich, creamy, honeyed. The wine pours like olive oil but still has a very pale and clear colour. A work in progress, but very interesting at this stage.

4/3/2015 - hrazdiiv Likes this wine:

Not much to add to the other reviews. This disciple of Manfred Krankel has turned out exceptional wine year after year (almost a little too consistent for my liking). This effort boasts a dark colour, with medium-high fruit and excellent finishes of tobacco and clove but what impressed me was the right amount of "heat" coming off the wine; most Syrahs of this age are not yet settled, yet this was a perfectly drinkable effort that also easily has 10yrs ahead of it. I have always found Maggie's efforts, like this wine, to be very well integrated. I will invoke the cliché that if you cannot afford SQN, then try this wine instead, it will not disappoint.

3/29/2015 - Highlander wrote:

Wow! In decline, but so, so good. Dark golden color and little tannins left. Very complex flavors, apricot, honey and pear. This should be drunk soon.