Martin Scott Portfolio Tasting 2008
East Side of Central Park, NYC
Tasted September 8, 2008 by RajivAyyangar with 1,115 views
Introduction
Earlier in the day I was tasting the lineup at Vias Imports with Joe and Julius. Joe got a call from the Premier guys (store in Buffalo) about the tasting they were at - Martin Scott. Having tasted most of the stuff we were interested in at Vias, we hopped in a cab and headed over here. For me it was a huge shock. Vias was large and all - about 24 tables. To put things in perspective, Martin Scott had 100 large tables, and two floors (we only checked out the top floor). It was like a college gymnasium filled with wine. My main complaint was that there was no bread - just cheeses and various vegetables and fruits. Thankfully Joe and I had brought bread sticks from Vias (which had a superb spread of charcuterie, bread, fresh parmigiano, and artisanal olive oils , and I'd brought my own bottled water. The glasses they provided were not quite ideal tulip shapes, but they weren't horrible either. There was an interesting mix of people there, as at Vias - some looked more serious, taking copious notes and spitting, while other people were in evening gowns, chatting.
Flight 1 - Spain: The Killer Row (13 notes)
Immediately beyond the entrance was a row of Spanish wines. Joe helped me to tease apart the fruit and oak flavors, and for the first time I recognized and appreciated superb oak treatment. These were powerful, delicious, layered wines - many of which are under $20 retail!
Palate: oak treatment - lingers on the finish. [before this point in my tasting career I always had trouble identifying oak. this row of killer Spanish wines will both teach me to recognize it in red wines, and really make me fall in love with oak treatment, if well done, in tempranillo].
90 JM, 88 ST
st90
jm91
80 yr old vines, Tempranillo
100-140 yr old prephylloxera vines!!!
94jm
91st
In the mouth: chocolate, coffee, roasted nuts, toast, but with beautiful fruit! Super ripe, chewy tannins, this is absolutely awesome. Super plush, rich, mouthfeel. Finish lasts aeons.
Retails for ~$70.
st90
jm91
89 jm
Nose is a bit light, but very pretty. Palate: simple but good.
Very dark. Blue fruit, coffee, oak, baked spices, roasted nuts, dark fruit. Great in the mouth, long finish, tannic. Not super ripe tannins, but the flavor sticks around a long time. Great oak integration.
'All these wines: ripe, balance and length, fruit and oak.'
I agree with JM?!:
90 pts: Deep crimson in color, it has a fragrant nose of cedar, pencil lead, spice box, and blackberry. This is followed by a wine with a forward personality, ripe, spicy fruit, sweet tannins.
Dark. A little raspberry, blue fruit. Good oak integration. Great palate.
jm91, st92
'all these spanish wines show great length, balance, and integrity... we'll see some new world wines, and a lot of times they smell great but just fall off in the mouth.
This is really full in the mouth.
"Oh that's really, really amazing... great acidity, great tannins, absolutely delicious structure...round, full, savory... wood... the wood is integrated, you get nutty, coffee, you know, hints of buttery toast, red fruit, dark fruit, dates..." Just an awesome wine. The experience of drinking it was so intense, it was faintly painful, in a good way.
Flight 2 - Mostly Italy (21 notes)
After a quick cava to rinse our palates, we moved to the rows on the left side of the building that were dominated by Italian wines, including a large selection of indigenous varietals. The one exception was a rather uninspiring Cotes du Rhone Villages from Tardieu-Laurent. I found these wines difficult - probably because we had just come from a mostly-Italy tasting, and my palate was somewhat battered from the high acid high tannin nebbiolos. Still, there were some very interesting wines.
Some dark fruit, oak treatment. A little bloodiness/savoriness.
Some sulfur. Some wet dog - brett. Burnt match - hydrogen sulfide.
Dark, deep flavors. Savory, meaty, cured meat, wet dog. The other aromatics should blow off with decanting.
Nice nose. Good sangiovese character. Not great but nice.
Nice earth, a little brett on the nose.
Everything in balance. A little tomato-like, bloody character, ripe, ripe tannins. Very nice.
Nose: some blood. Simple, nice, some pyrazines.
Stewed fruit on the nose. Oak treatment - nutty. Smelled a little oxidized. Good structure.
100% Montepulciano d'Abruzzo.
JoeG: "Ripe, modern, oak aged. Declassified to IGT". Smelled Oxidized to me.
Flight 3 - The Center Row (5 notes)
Moving back toward the Spanish row, we went up the center aisle, tasting a couple lackluster Bdx before meeting Aldo Vajra (whom I talked with the very next day at the Corkscrew tasting) and tasting some of his wines, and an Elio Grasso (which I had in my cellar at the time).
If it were under $20 it would be good, if 30+, not so good. Decent but nothing too inspiring. I mentioned that it's a Grand cru, so probably expensive but according to Joe, "It's St. Emilion though, Grand cru status doesn't immediately signify higher prices."
Flight 4 - Excursion with the Dude in the Suit (2 notes)
Joe introduced me to a friend of his, I'll call him Suit Dude, who was recently promoted to some high-up position in Martin Scott. Learning that this was my first really big tasting, he promptly took me on a whirlwind tour of his favorite wines. We dashed all over the room, and I only recall two of the wines in any detail (they were all delicious) before rejoining JoeG over at the white burg table (on the far right of the room).
Flight 5 - Tasting Burgs, Cali, and Alsace with Joe and Suit Dude (9 notes)
After the quick tour, we joined JoeG at a rather eclectic row on the far right side. With the variety of wines here, I felt like someone had rubbed fog off of my glasses - I was all of a sudden able to distinguish the wines (or some of them) with reasonable clarity. In particular, the Gewurztraminer aromatics hit me like a spray of cold water in the face - in a good way.
Joe: "In wines like this, and Torrontes, I'm not a big fan when they smell like this but finish dry and high alcohol/hot. I would rather they had a little residual sugar, lower alcohol, and zippy acidity"
-I think I agree. This wasn't as much fun to drink as it was to smell.
73% Sangiovese
14% Cab
7% petite sirah
4% viognier
1% muscat
Some pyrazines. Can't hear the rest of my notes, unfortunately.
rp91
Pretty good? Can't hear my notes too clearly. Nothing crazy.
Flight 6 - More Cali, sans Dude (4 notes)
At this point, Joe's friend took leave, and we continued a bit along the row. Neither of us are really fans of Cali wines, and furthermore I think we were both feeling serious palate fatigue, but we pressed on for a bit.
Flight 7 - I Met Chris Ringland!!!!!!! (2 notes)
As a final stop we hit the Aussie table. Who should be behind the counter but Chris Ringland, surrounded by an army of wines under his "R" label. I didn't know what to say, so I just introduced myself and babbled on about the wine club. Chris was very nice, and it was surreal meeting a winemaker whose name I've seen hundreds of times on bottles. In terms of meeting Mr. Ringland, and the huge wines he makes, we definitely went out with a bang!
Not an overpowering nose - "McLaren is the feminine to Barossa's masculine." Very Acidic - acidified. Has some tannins, and fruit. It's all there.
I'm not sure how to score this. On one hand, I don't like it - it's characterless, over-oaked (24 or 34 months in Fr and Amer according to Ringland), has super-fake acidity (it actually felt like the acid was in a different country than the rest of the wine, very separate), and really has no complexity. On the other hand, it's undeniably delicious and has balancing acidity to deal with the porty sweetness. Objectively I'd have to say in the high 80's or even 90's if you like that style. For me personally I'd like to go 60 on this, just cause it rubs me the wrong way.
Closing
All in all a tremendous tasting, and a tremendous day! While my impressions were rather vague, especially towards the end as my palate became stiff from acid and tannins, this was an invaluable lesson in tasting large numbers of wines. In particular, I fell in love with Spain, learned to pick out oak influence, and learned to identify fake acid.