11/29/2023 - David Strange Likes this wine:

It was 31℃ in Winchester when I decided to open this Werfdans 2017, so to give it a chance to show at its cool, refined, charming best, I stuck it in the fridge for a while.

When I got around to opening the Werfdans 2017, I realised it had to warm up a bit, but I poured myself a taste anyway. A sniff, and the fruit, minerality, depth of flavour and poise made me exclaim, “This smells just like Corton-Bressandes Grand Cru from Chandon de Briailles!” So we are thinking minimalist, total beauty from the first, chilled sniff.

However, this could not be right. Appellation rules do not allow Cinsault to be made into Corton Grand Cru. I let it warm up a bit.

My, how the Werfdans 2017 had blossomed. It blossomed into a fragrant rose of heady, deep aroma, dusted with exotic spices growing in granite soil that someone is furiously chipping with scant regard to the danger to one’s feet.

The unfathomably deep character to these aromas is testament to the struggles the 49-year-old (at the time of harvest) vines have endured in their dust devil-playground. They express this location and their age so clearly; this must be a special place and I want to visit it – this much is certain already.

The glisks of sunlight that refract through the pale coloured Werfdans match the energy and vigour of the palate. It has vital acidity and vivacious stone-y characteristics. Thrills indeed!

It’s florid rose and redcurrant fruit flavours are as profound as they are elegant and refined, and the exotic spice characteristics that add to the supremely happiness-provoking, stylish nature of this wine just make me want to grin one of my broad, silly grins.

There is depth and, dare I say it, real concentration of flavour despite this Werfdans clocking in at a mere 12.5%. It has real poise and balance between concentration and finesse, involute eclat and minimalist elan.

The finish just goes on and on.

This is, indeed, what Ian aims for – the character of its origins captured in the medium of vinous style, and I love it. I know some people like opaque, 15% wines that taste of minestrone soup, but this is a whole realm of beauty that is worth anyone’s time exploring.

At six years old this Werfdans 2017 is a sententious supermodel clad in chicly revealing robes that you can happily throw yourself at as they walk down the catwalk, but I do not think there is any harm in leading them to your cellar to ravish in your own good time.

Exquisitely sublime.

10/13/2023 - David Strange wrote:

The first sniff reveals delicate scents of red fruits suffused with heady aromas of rose petals and hints of exotic spice.

A second sniff shows the red fruit is only part of a continuum of fruit flavours that blend seamlessly from lingonberry to blackcurrant the involute nature of which is enhanced by the rose, spice and the merest suggestion of Cabernet Franc leafiness.

It is a highly engaging nose, thick with fragrance, sweet with fruit, yet not at all powered by alcohol. This is the pure expression of the grapes, and they express that they were picked at the peak of their unequivocal attractiveness.

It is amazing that so much perfume can come at such a low alcohol level, and the nose is all the more beautiful for lacking any heat or burn to it. Oupa Willem 2020 is totally at ease with itself. Confident, charismatic, captivating.

When one tastes the first impression is of light red fruit with good energy and life. It unfolds on one’s palate to deliver rose petal and musk flavours. Very nice!

As you swirl Oupa Willem 2020 around your palate a leafy freshness develops along with darker fruit flavours. Given how light it initially tasted it begins to show a reasonable degree of structure to its tannins, which build and, with the bright acidity, give a vibrant grip to the palate. The tannins seem surprisingly ripe for a 11.5% wine.

The more you taste, the more you are seduced by the fruity, floral flavours that permeate the now distinctly tannic palate. More and more keeps on being revealed by this palate, it is quite the little temptress, and to keep tasting it is to love it with a greater intensity. It is delicious!

There is no shame in drinking this now, but I feel in 5-10 years this will display even more complexity and there will be even more integration between the components that already sing such a sweet song together.

Oupa Willem 2020 is clearly the best one yet; chapeau, Ian!

10/9/2023 - David Strange Likes this wine:

Fleshy, fruity and fun, with a kick of alcohol to keep you giggling. It is not really complex or serious, but it is not dull. It is a nice drink and that is what I would hope for at the just under £20 I paid for it.

9/5/2023 - David Strange Likes this wine:

Popped and poured straight from the fridge.

It is a little reticent at this low temperature, but it is obviously ripe, with peachy, apricot fruit as well as the more usual Riesling lime and lemon characteristics – both quite voluptuous here. I only get hints of the slight nutty aroma I usually identify with Nahe wines – just on an initial sniff it would be easy to mistake this for a ripe Saar wine.

So, a taste…

SMACK! I have driven my palate into a massive wall of acidity! It is purifyingly, penetratingly, petrifyingly painful – oh it is so good! This acidity is not so much ‘glisks of afternoon sunlight’ as ‘mid-day sun intensity focussed through a magnifying glass so it makes your skin melt and boil’ (do not ask for more information but, believe me, I know this pain). It is asterine in its precision, mind-wiping in its clarity. How utterly brilliant!

Behind this firebrand of an experience, there is just discernible sweetness and plenty of ripe fruit. There are a lot of slate-y characteristics too. Straight from the fridge like this you would say, “Jesus Christ! This is an Egon Muller or Peter Lauer Auction Kabinett… but… it is better? Really? YES!”

You see, despite the searing, terrifying, delicious acidity, it is extremely finely balanced. The Editor claims that really fine wines have an uncompromising element to their balance – a ‘terror balance’, as he likes to call it. This has that going on, oh yes! Oh yes it does!

As it warms up I get more of that Nahe nuttiness on the nose and more fruit and minerality show both there and on the palate. A touch reductive too? Yes. It is dazzlingly complex and stunningly long. With the intense acidity it seems superficially dry and sapid but, without too much imagination, you can feel sweetness there. Amazing essence of Spatlese.

This is the nec ultra plus Nahe Spatlese experience; properly fruity, pleasingly slate-y, complex to a delightful level and fearsomely acidic. Yeah.

I have had some great wines this summer but, by arse, none of them as arrestingly, refulgently, arousingly brilliant as this. Beg, borrow or steal to have a taste.

- From Elitistreview.com

5/1/2023 - David Strange Likes this wine:

The nose has delicious, sweet cherry fruit, rounded out with lovely strawberry aromas and a hint of vivacious redcurrant. The fruit, if nothing else, would make one lean toward beginning to think it had the suggestion of the shades of a hint of Burgundian character.

Then there is the effect of the soil-type Taganan 2020 is grown on. Here things move from Burgundy to Hades!

Taganan has suggestions of brimstone, black pepper and black powder to it. It Is sulphury, but in a very slightly reductive manner.

So, I will give the Taganan 2020 a vigorous swirl in my glass. Good, the sulphur retreats, but never quite disappears. That is fine; you do not want a wine to be totally inexpressive of its tarangawaewae.

What emerges on the nose of the Taganan 2020 is a rich earthiness. A rocky and stoney earthiness, but earthy in a way not entirely dissimilar to the way some red Burgundies can be earthy.

So Taganan has good, fresh red fruit, a rich earthiness and is quite elegant. That sounds pretty Burgundian to me!

Of course, Taganan 2020 is far from a clone of Burgundy, very far indeed. However, if only two red wines existed in the world, Screaming Eagle and Domaine Dujac Clos de la Roche, it would be the ‘Dujac’ that you were thinking smelled a little odd today.

Taganan’s palate is charged with lovely, sweet, ripe fruit! Yummy, yummy! Cherries and strawberries, mainly, but there is extra energy given to the palate by some tart redcurrant flavours and spiced vigour.

Indeed, Taganan 2020 has a very energetic and lively palate, with bright, fresh flavours giving vivacity and drive and a good, silky tannic structure. It is quite dry and savoury as well.

That dryness is, in part, driven by the merest hint of an ‘Australian caught on camera ball tampering’-character to the tannins, but mostly they are elegant and silky and the sandpaper roughness is only a slight hint.

And that slight hint of roughness is an expression of the Taganan 2020 terroir. There is a tumbling of metamorphic minerals and stone rolling across your palate as you tease apart the other flavours. Good! We want wines to speak of their origins!

All of these characteristics are wrapped up in a neat, elegant little package that is very light and extremely refreshing. It is both savoury and fruity. It is energetic with moderate silky tannins. It is… Burgundy?

No! Of course Taganan 2020 is not Burgundy! But, as I intimated at the beginning, if you can no longer afford the real thing, this might scratch the itch. Wonderful.

4/10/2023 - David Strange Likes this wine:

Climat En Carementrant 2021 has a light, flowery nose with plenty of fresh apple and lemon fruit. It is energetic and vibrant, very Pouilly-Fuissé in character.

However, if you sniff a bit more carefully, you can find deeper levels of complexity and style that mark this out as quite a special, superior wine. Indeed, if you noticed these characteristics on your first sniff I think you could be excused for thinking this was an elegant Côte-de-Beaune white.

It does not have the weight to be from there, in truth, it is highly refined and dances up your nostrils as the most lithe of pole-dancers would pull themselves up.

There is butter here as well, not so much a slathering but more a smattering. This is slightly surprising to find in a Maconnais wine, but this wine is a bit of a mashup.

You see, there is a great tension on the nose between ripe and bold flavours and elegant, prettier aromas.

Imagine, if you will, me wearing Y-fronts. Obviously, they are packed full of masculine pleasure-potential, but the taut elastic of the Y-fronts keeps everything held in place with very little bulging or sagging.

The Climat En Carementrant 2021 is only 12.5%, so that explains some of the taut, precise characteristics. Moreover, as you will have seen from the side label, this Climat is entirely planted on limestone. This will give energy and focus to the wine.

The palate is a wondrous kaleidoscope of complex, intertwined flavours. The Climat En Carementrant 2021 just tastes of so many different things.

The Climat En Carementrant 2021 has fresh flowers, grassiness, lovely ripe lemon, fresh Granny Smith apple and a hint of grapefruit zesty fruit, a profound stoniness – freshly chipped limestone, great – although far from excessive – acidity that keeps the whole thing vivacious and infused with life and drive, a hint of butter, some waxiness. You see there is a lot going on!

All of these flavours are very prominent and deep, but the palate is never weighty or heavy. That tension between ripe, abundant flavours and minimalist restraint that was present on the nose of the Climat En Carementrant 2021 is in action <em>bigly</em>* on the palate. My Y-fronts elastic has a lot to hold in, but it looks perfectly presentable.

The finish is enormously long, with a huge swirl of those complex flavours leaving glisks of deliciousness on the palate for a long time after being swallowed. It is really restrained but, my, what a lot is going on here.

To summarise this is a brilliant small-scale beauty that toys with ideas of scale which are all held in place by the taut, minimalist frame of the wine. I have a second bottle, and it will undoubtedly mature, but this is so enjoyable I think I will open my next bottle in the near future.

2/24/2023 - David Strange Likes this wine:

Bright, fresh fruit that seems very precise and focussed rather than blowsy and all over the place. This is a good start.

There is plenty of presence of the Syrah spice box, but not so much, some but not much, of the pepper that seems to be the fingerprint of South African Syrah. The spice aromas of perfectly ripe Syrah are delicious and moreish. Sniff and sniff some more!

With the bright, fresh fruit, spice box and a slight hint of blackberry leaf there are suggestions of Crozes-Hermitage about this. Not the evil filth of Frey Thalabert, nor the small-scale poise of Graillot, but the ripe but vivacious Crozes of the late great Gerard Jaboulet. Wow, what a thing to say!

No Place Like Home 2021 is alive with energy and fruit, both in perfect tension and absolute balance. It is clean as a whistle, too, unlike Gerard’s efforts, and there is good dimension and complexity showing here. This is stuff for proper people!

I think the nose of No Place Like Home 2021 is deeply attractive. With echoes of the great Gerard J, whilst being clean, spicy and fruit driven, I do not think you could ask more from the nose of a cool climate Syrah at this price.

Something that shows more on the palate of No Place Like Home 2021 than on the nose is a strong stone/gravel character – maybe a hint of seashell. This is more complexity to a palate that has plenty going on as it is.

The fruit! The fruit! Sam Lambson gets his fruit just right! Ripe and full yet tense and firm. Quite delicious.

That fruit is as fresh as the slight green/leafiness that once again gives a shade of Crozes to this No Place Like Home 2021. This is a great thing of which to have an aspect, a feeling – and it is only an aspect/feeling; good Crozes is a wonderful thing.

The spice, with more pepper showing here, swirls with the fruit and gravel-character on a long and satisfying finish that leaves a sense of happiness and fulfilment on the palate after you have swallowed.

Really very good Syrah from South Africa, and a big change from the Swartland examples (lovely as they are). Snap it up!

12/9/2022 - David Strange Likes this wine:

Just a quick note. This was scintillatingly brilliant. Incredible, detailed fruit and earthiness, intricate minerality and a huge, complex finish. All very svelte and refined. It is, however, still a little oaky and the tannins are quite butch. It obviously has the balance to resolve into a wonderful wine of supreme quality, but it is going to take a while. Indeed, I felt a bit of an idiot opening such a serious 2018 at this age and thinking a long decant would for it to be ready to drink at dinner. Do not open this until the last half of this decade and it will only get better for 15-20 years after that. Let me make it abundantly clear: this is a fabulous wine, but at this point one would be unwise to pop it.

I had a Domaine Jamet 2018 at the same time, which was a little more accessible, but the same message applies: wait and be rewarded.

11/20/2022 - David Strange Does not like this wine:

Let us cut to the chase: this wine is utterly disgusting. It is clearly made for people who think the entire point of wine is the alcohol content and nothing else matters. People who say this is good value presumably mean you get a lot of alcohol for your money; it is 15%.

It has a syrupy sweet nose of cherry jam and hot sweet alcohol. There is nothing in the way of varietal or regional character, it is just an ‘overripe red wine’.

The palate has dreadful soupy tannins, jammy fruit and a hot, alcoholic afterburn. There is no complexity, no regional character and, again, no varietal character. This could be one of the lesser examples of a boozy Zinfandel for all the specific characteristics this wine displays.

This is simple, alcohol-charged boredom. I dare say some people who like overripe wines will find this lovely. Philistines. It is no example of where it comes from and no example of its varietal. I cannot emphasise enough how repulsive this wine is nor how much I detest it. What a waste of money.

10/6/2022 - David Strange Does not like this wine:

This stank of cider and tasted of cider. It wasn’t the worst natural wine can be but, by arse, I wasted money buying this filth.

9/2/2022 - David Strange Likes this wine:

Lytton Springs 2011 shows tertiary development of the fruit, it adds plummy depth to the softened blackberry and cherry aromas. This gives it good complexity.

Whereas the Buchignani Ranch had strident fruit, this seems more mellow and polished. Age has done this wine a lot of favours. I have, on occasion, suggested Lytton Springs does not mature gracefully; this 2011 shows I have been talking bollocks.

There are shades of leather and tar to it, the leather is not sweaty, dirty or a sign of overripeness.

Lytton Springs 2011 is developed and voluptuous – a wine to envelope your senses with and revel in its hedonism. Again, I think this carries its alcohol level very well, but I get more of an impression of sweet American oak here.

I do not mind that oak at all, it adds a sweet spice to the broad and complex fruit aromas, the secondary characteristics merging seamlessly with the tertiary fruit development.

This Ridge Zinfandel still has good, rigorous tannins and a lovely streak of balancing acidity. Indeed, balance and harmony seem to be the prominent impressions I get from this wine. That makes Lytton Springs 2011 very enjoyable indeed, it is a great drink that slips down a treat.

Quite delicious, and whilst it shows development there is certainly no rush to drink it. Come back in ten years and it will probably be even more of a luscious treat. Just delicious!

9/2/2022 - David Strange Likes this wine:

Explosive nose with the power and excitement value of what I suspect to be quite old vines. In addition to intense bramble fruit, I found candied orange and lemon aromas, leather and Christmas pudding spice.

This wine carries its booze factor very neatly, as it does with its American oak treatment. Neither seem excessive or emetic. It is big and powerful, oh yes, but that comes from characterful grapes, the alcohol and secondary* aromas step to one side.

The palate has spicy, warm and rich bramble fruit that is intense, but not overwhelming – it is not a fruit bomb. Good acidity levels help with this balanced and restrained expression of scale.

There is a lovely spicy character on the palate as well. Christmas pudding with plenty of candied peel added. The spice gives a sense of warm richness rather than the alcohol.

This is still young, but another pleasing wine with plenty to enjoy about it. Drink it now or keep it ten years, either way I think you will be laughing!

9/2/2022 - David Strange Likes this wine:

Wow, what a nose! Booze-charged, certainly, but beautiful poise with cherry fruit, pepper, herbal aromas and a slight seasoning of oak. Despite its prodigious scale, that some people are gernative about, this was a balanced nose of considerable style and complexity.

The palate is warm but utterly lovely. Cherry and plum fruit washes across your palate enlivened by great acidity and an intense grind of pepper.

There is a set of leather-like aromas from the Mourvèdre, but it is not the slightest bit dirty or sweaty. It is detailed, compelling and extremely fine.

What a finish! Fruit, spice and herbal flavours linger in intricate patterns across your palate with asteristic scintillations of pepper and acidity keeping the whole experience lively and perky.

What else? I would be failing if I did not comment that, along with all the extremely fine, complex and engaging characteristics of this wine, it gave an enormous impression of being extremely delicious. It was just such a joy to drink, engaging both the mind and the palate in a manner that expanded and redefined the boundaries of pleasure. Unabashed loveliness.

This is one of the world’s great wines, as its asking price, complexity, style, class and unadulterated joy-factor suggest.

9/14/2020 - David Strange Likes this wine:

I just had a taste of this to see if it would benefit from decanting. It seems pretty tannic, but not overly extracted, so I have double-decanted and I will report on my next taste in 45 minutes.

Well, I am not reporting on my next taste, I am reporting on my last glass of my half of the bottle because, bugger me, I am really enjoying this Rabelais Cabernet Sauvignon! It may be a shade boozy but, by arse, it is fabulous. I would suggest anyone buying flash super-second-type 2019 Claret to save some money and buy Rabelais Cabernet Sauvignon, you will have just as sophisticated, but a more fun time.

OK, the tasting note thing. Initially it was a tiny bit cold as I had put it in the fridge before and after I decanted it (as it is a warm day in Winchester) and this had made the wood stand out a little bit.

However, I thought it seemed too chilled so I warmed my glass in my hands and, lo, balance and harmony were restored. The oak is perfectly well-integrated, especially if you consider that this is a young wine. It shows as cedar-y with shades of aged Havana cigar.

There are pencil shavings and a distinct aroma of the graveliness one gets with quality Claret. This Rabelais Cabernet Sauvignon has complexity and real class on the nose.

There is more than enough fruit too. It is not the preserved blackcurrants of crème de cassis as most international Cabernet Sauvignons show, but freshly plucked and crushed blackcurrants that burst with summer sun ripened freshness. Deeee-lish, this Rabelais Cabernet Sauvignon.

The thing that I really enjoyed on the nose as I flew through my half of the bottle was that all the aromas were in wonderful harmony with each other. There is a stable equilibrium of all the components as I have sniffed this, particularly now it is not at fridge temperature. It is absolutely glorious!

I have been surprised by how much I enjoyed the palate of this wonderful Rabelais Cabernet Sauvignon as well. The first thing that grabbed me about it was its energy and life.

The acidity is really well judged, and I do not think it has been added with a shovel a la New Zealand Pinot Noir. It is so integrated with the rest of the palate I would say it has to be, largely at the very least, naturally derived. I think that is thanks, in part, to the Petit Verdot.

I found this acidity suffused the wood- and fruit-derived tannins to create a vigorous and totally compelling structure. It is both lively and supportive of the fruit.

The palate of the Rabelais Cabernet Sauvignon has really fresh, but luxurious fruit. It is charged with life from the acidity and from being picked whilst ripe than overripe. I am frankly amazed by how much I am enjoying this.

There is a graveliness to the palate of the Rabelais Cabernet Sauvignon as well. This is an involute example of the Cabernet Sauvignon-genre. It is very Claret-y, but… god damn it, it is more interesting. I am amazed I am saying this about something I expected to be just a little ordinary.

On the finish of this Rabelais there is a powerful mineral/gravel grip and the fruit just lasts and lasts. I am not a tit-ish wine writer who says things like, “This finish was 60+ seconds long!”, but this has prodigious length after you swallow and it still leaves you feeling the breadth of the fruit and tannin. Just wow!

7/11/2022 - David Strange Likes this wine:

38% Cabernet Sauvignon, 37% Cabernet Franc, 25% Cinsault. !4% alcohol.

From the wine fridge. It's delicious! Very dry with a beautiful Cabernet-composed nose and structure. As it breathes the cake-y, spicy, old vine power of the Cinsault grows and just gives the slightest hint of those tonic wines one's grandfather used to drink. It's very complex, very pleasing, has a good balance between the structured and upright Cabernets and the softer, spicy Cinsault. The flavours of one segue seamlessly into the other and it delights totally. You don't get any hint of the alcohol apart from during that 'tonic wine' stage. I think drinking it *slightly* chilled is a good idea, and I think it'll age too. Yes, delicious!

6/30/2022 - David Strange Likes this wine:

Jesus Shit, this smells good! Really fantastic, indeed, and there is much to think about as we smell and sniff.

For a start, there is a core of really sophisticated, sweet fruit. It mostly smells of ripe blackcurrants, but there is additional complexity from the extra colour of redcurrants and blackberries. This is really classy and just too nice to be called simply ‘impressive’. It is gloriously commanding!

I don’t get much in the way of Merlot plumminess, but Cabernet fruit is drop-dead fabulous. There is a leafy edge that could be Cabernet Franc, but I think it is real quality Cabernet Sauvignon that is allowing all its details and multifaceted class to dominate one’s glass with serious explendency.

If we are playing ‘spot the blend components’ I feel sure there is a hint of the musky fruit that shows when even small amounts of Petit Verdot are present. I also think there is a suggestion of the rasping horribleness of Malbec, but I would prefer to think they did not sully this excellent wine with that, at absolute best, pitifully ordinary varietal.

The basic message is there is a wonderful centre to this nose of brilliantly involute, highly attractive fruit.

I do not know if it really makes sense to describe a set of aromas as a three dimensional structure, but I am about to do that so let us say it does.

That pulsing shaft of refulgent fruit towers in the centre of this nose. It is surrounded by beautifully detailed layers that support the fruit core wonderfully.

There are a lot of fine cedar wood shavings around the core, delightfully scented and increasing the complexity to ever greater levels.

These cedar wood shaving are dusted with crushed pencil points and around this perfumed layer there is the solid structure of rich earth mixed with gravel. It is a tremendously complex edifice of a nose.

Some of you may be thinking this sounds quite Claret, and it is! It reminds me of a very specific Claret I drank at five years old. Alas, it was five years old twenty-eight years ago, but honestly my postulate is accurate!

What this smells of to me is five-year-old Leoville-las Cases 1988. That had the sophisticated fruit core with the complex layers surrounding it. It was also terribly grown-up and serious. Maybe this is a shade more fun, but we are talking a seriously classy wine here that is not playing around in the paddling end of the quality-pool.

So we have a taste… Yeah that’s LLC ‘88, alright! It’s got a solid structure of cedar wood and slightly chalky tannins woven around dense earth and gravel. There is a decent amount of acidity, some a little rasping, but it is definitely correct. This upright, taut structure slaps lesser wines back to the paddling end, yielding the quality zone to no also-runner… err.. also-swimmer…

Once again, there is a core of sweet, delicious, intellectual but also god-damn lubricious fruit. It pulses with all the dimensions Cabernet Sauvignon can display at its very finest. Supremely complex… What a stunner!

The length here is awesome and the exquisitely composed melange of flavours it leaves as you swallow a mouthful of richly-detailed, pointed-end of pleasure, utter joy easily jerks a tear to the eye and a desire to taste more of its sapid seriousness. What a mouthful of living excitement this is!

I feel spent and drained after reliving the drinking experience by editing my stream-of-consciousness dictation of my first, explosively enjoyable experience. This is truly a wine of few equals. Sure, if you had one bottle you a would pleasure yourself immensely if you popped its cork now but, please, take it when it is over fifteen.

6/28/2022 - David Strange Likes this wine:

A wonderful nose of red berry fruit, fresh and ripe, bursting with life. There is a distinctly spiciness to the Werfdans 2016 nose as well, again distinctly vivacious. Both of these exhibit quite an intensity of flavour, a product of the old vines used for Werfdans 2016.

The really appealing thing about the Werfdans 2016 nose is, even with the intense fruit and spice, is that the nose exhibits extreme elegance and restraint. It is not the slightest bit over-blown or hot. Being 12.5% alcohol obviously drives this.

A typical Australian winemaker would look at this alcohol level and sneer, “Why should I make wine from unripe fruit?” But it is not unripe. The careful choice of when the fruit was ready to harvest by Ian Naudé has resulted in a wine with fresh, bright, ripe fruit, but also real refinement and harmony.

The palate is also a model of balanced minimalism. Nothing heavy, nothing hard, everything delicious. That 12.5% booze quotient is a master stroke in making Werfdans 2016 a scintillating drink of energy and freshness.

Werfdans 2016 has a beguiling combination of berry fruit and spiciness on the palate, together with some creamy minerality from the vineyard. The red fruit and spiciness are products of the Cinsault grape, their pronounced character from the old vines of Werfdans 2016 and the energy and freshness from the inspirational potential alcohol level at harvest.

Werfdans 2016 is the product of nature, harnessed through the lens of the genius of the winemaker. Ian Naudé is a genius, worthy of his cult winemaker status.

6/28/2022 - David Strange Likes this wine:

My first impression is that this Rabelais 2019 smells gorgeous! It has got great fresh blackcurrant fruit in abundance, together with spicy oak, cigar box characters and crushed pencil complexity. All of these components have restraint and exist in excellent harmony with each other. It is the nose of a fine, refined wine.

But more important than that, it is delicious, exciting and fun-packed. It is positively titillating with its pleasure value and lubricious with its array of harmonious aromas. Quite the stunner. This is a really fine, really delightful nose.

The palate is also very elegant and refined. It has a great interplay between the rigorous, refined, slightly chalky structure and the fresh blackcurrant – perhaps with hints of blackberry – fruit. The whirl and intertwine as you taste, giving winning complexity, top bunny harmony and engaging complexity.

And… It is delicious! Its crushed pencil minerality together with cedar wood spicy give titillating complexity. The firm structure massages your palate with its bright energy and vivacious tannins. Its fruit… oh its fruit… Perfectly controlled and great restraint, but bubbling with ripe, thrilling freshness and palate flattering multivagancy. It is the perfect combination between precise correctness and nigh-limitless pantophilic charm.

Given the delicious nature of this wine you can start drinking this immediately, but with its wonderful structure, abundant fruit and precise balance it would be a shame if you did not keep this for a minimum of 10 years. It will age and improve for 20 years, if not longer. I cannot recommend this highly enough, to taste it is to love it.

Is it better than the 2017? If you bought some of that you can judge for yourself in 15 years, that is when I will decide…

5/2/2022 - David Strange Likes this wine:

I thought I would give this a little taste well in advance of it being required for dinner, just in case!

Jesus Shit! This is more tannic than a leather factory! It is truly frightening in its hardness and so generally tough it makes me want to throw it at the bastard who has parked in our space, just to irreparably knacker their car.

I get the impression that there is some quite delicious fruit in the Lytton Estate Petite Sirah, but it is so bound up in the tannin and the hardness of youth that discerning it requires more than a little imagination.

This is being double-decanted for three-and-one-half hours before it is required for dinner, and I am still worried our gums will be black for the rest of eternity.

One-and-one-half hours later I double decanted it again.

Dinner is arriving and so I will have some wine. It is very dark, but that tells us bugger all about the wine’s flavour profile.

The Lytton Estate Petite Sirah has a wonderful nose, I am slightly surprised to report. Mulberry and slightly bitter cherry fruit. The fruit is quite Italianate in character.

Despite the Italian similarity is not in the slightest bit too alcoholic. The Lytton Estate Petite Sirah claims to be 13.5% and that seems spot on to me. Good.

I also get the feeling that there has been little messing around with new oak on the Lytton Estate Petite Sirah. There is a mild suggestion of sweet vanilla, but it is understated and lets the fruit and vineyard do the talking.

Adding to my Italian impression of the Lytton Estate Petite Sirah is a rich and polished earthy character. If I were given this blind I would not have a smart arse answer straight off the bat, but once I got around to making a guess, which would be a civilised and quite smart Brunello di Montalcino, I would feel pretty pleased with my guess.

The palate would only add to my irritating smugness. Yes, the Lytton Estate Petite Sirah is still very tannic, but not as uncompromisingly brutal as when I opened it nearly four hours ago. Those tough tannins could be Italian, could they not?

There is also a rich earthiness to this palate. You have to go looking for it a little as all the time you chew this Lytton Estate Petite Sirah around your mouth you cannot get the words, “Hell’s bells this is tannic!”, out of your mind.

The fruit is bitter cherry in character and the Lytton Estate Petite Sirah has generally shows a pleasingly bitter edge to its palate. It is clearly extremely young, with two or three decades ahead of it, but enthusiastic decanting has allowed a chink in its tannic armour to look through and see an entity of a distinctly attractive character.

There has been some criticism recently that Ridge are starting to make wines that are more accessible at a younger age than the wines were under Paul Draper, with the aim that they can chase points and appeal to younger palates. Not with this wine! Lytton Estate Petite Sirah will appeal to younger palates by the time they have grown into distinctly middle-aged palates!

Ridge fans should not find it as hard as this wine to recognise its tough, uncompromising character from the York Creek example of Petite Sirah. You will have to be softer than this wine is on European-trained palates if they make my mistake and guess this as something tough that is closer to home.

The Lytton Estate Petite Sirah is undoubtedly very good, even if it leans toward fascist-aesthetics with its suggestions of leather boots, black trench coats and stamping on people’s necks. It does, perhaps, lack slightly on the deliciousness scale. One thing is certain, you have just got to be enormously patient for it to reach maturity.

4/12/2022 - David Strange Does not like this wine:

I was worried when the back label of this wine said it was 15%. I was right to be. The nose had hints of peachy fruit, but most aromas had been obliterated by the sweet, hot, alcohol burn that was actively repulsive to have even the slightest sniff off. Oh, how awful, those poor grapes.

If it has any fruit or acidity left this would be a dry palate, but those had all been cooked away and one was left with the sweet burn of ludicrously high alcohol levels.

Despite the alcohol level being at insane filth levels, this wine was actually boring. There was no fruit, no acidity, not even any dirtiness on the palate, all there was was the massively unbalanced alcohol. Getting the sensory apparatus in one’s nose anaesthetised isn’t all that interesting.

It was an exercise in how NOT to handle hot vintages and was consequently fundamentally undrinkable.

2/3/2013 - David Strange Likes this wine:

OK, before I get onto all the weird split personality stuff let me say one thing that is manifestly brilliant about this wine: it will age amazingly well. Give it five or more years and it’ll develop into a soft, scented lovely of grace and charm. It’ll be gorgeous. Right, ready for the insanity? OK, let’s go!

From drinking a lot of 2001 and some 2004 Pradeaux I am used to them being booze-fuelled monsters of terrific tannin and general terror. They were brilliant, old fashioned Bandol that you had to lay down for decades and hope or attack with large knives in the hope of breaking up some of those gum-bleeding polyphenol chains. This is… er… um… NICE! What’s happened? It’s still pretty tannic but those tannins are soft, not powerful enough to turn an entire cow into leather just by showing it the bottle. The booze level is quite moderate too; it’s not going to explode if you put it into a centrally heated room. There’s proper grilled-meat Bandol fruit, but it is sedate and mellow, not spikey and aggressively powerful. This is ALL WRONG. And what is perhaps most wrong of all is that I really, really like it… OOoooohhh… the shame… I feel I am committing some cosmic crime for liking a Bandol that is not as wacked out as the appellation, and this producer in particular, can produce. If someone asked me for a pleasing Bandol wine they could try so see if they liked the appellation I’d recommend this in a grasshopper’s trill. I would then seethe and gnash my teeth that I’d suggested something quite so wonderfully tasty and not a raw Bandol fighting wine experience. This is the best young Bandol I’ve had in years and I will be buying more of it, but couldn’t it just have been a little more frightening? If you do get some definitely age a bottle or two (see above), wines at this price will rarely age with such grace, harmony, refinement and not petrifying terror. Brilliant but… AAAARGH… different and… double AAARGH… better!

Just as an aside, The Editor said, “This is the best bottle of Pradeaux you’ve ever opened; it’s nice and I don’t feel I have to fight it.”

2/3/2013 - David Strange Does not like this wine:

It smelled like a dead-persons airing cupboard and tasted like particularly unpleasant paint stripper. This is one of the most disgusting wines I've had in ages.

2/3/2013 - David Strange Likes this wine:

Cripes, this smells quite ripe! Blackberries and cherries mixed in with the strawberries I’d expect. Quite a lot of personality here with all that hedonistic fruit and rich, pretty complex earthiness. There is even a suggestion of alcoholic warmth to the nose, which must be the first time any such thing has been reported about a Savigny. It smells absolutely delicious, but even though it’s from 2009 I didn’t expect it to be quite so BIG. Ah now the palate has plenty of focussed acidity, that I would expect from a Savigny. Yet, because of the abundant, gloriously attractive fruit, this has the fresh flavour of fun rather than a tart taste of terror. Tannins have some rigour, but not tough by any means. There’s alcoholic sweetness here too which, in this case, is a good thing – it’s quite warming me up as I sit here naked. I’m rather warmed to this task too. I don’t often drink Savigny, it can be harsh, miserable and insipid, and, even though I like them a lot, Chandon de Briailles wines can sometimes lean a little too far toward the angular: bugger me if this one isn’t spot on! So drinking this is very much in line with my values. It’ll age and improve for a while longer too; amazing! However, I feel my bones ageing and deteriorating as I sit in the draft from the window so I will draw this tasting note to a close and go and adjust my body temperature to something warmer in a different part of the flat.

5/3/2012 - David Strange Likes this wine:

Delicious strawberry fruit nose, really very pretty. It smells soft and charming, with no hint of silliness with alcohol or new oak. The palate has a very slight suggestion of rigor to the tannins, but it is mainly all about that lovely, lovely strawberry fruit. The acidity us spot on to keep it fresh and juicy. Pretty good length to it as well. It may not be the most throbbingly complex bottle of Burgundy the world has ever seen, but it was the perfect 2007 Beaune and, as such, an utter delight to drink.

5/3/2012 - David Strange Likes this wine:

I admit I didn’t notice when this stopped being ‘Brut Chardonnay’ and became ‘Brut Blanc des Blancs’, but I don’t suppose it’s that important. It had a very attractive nose of bread and complex apple fruit. It seemed fresh but there was a lot going on when you smelled it, clearly more complex, if perhaps not as many laughs, as the Gratien I popped when I came out of hospital. The palate was toasty and complex with many layers of flavour and those flavours really persisted too. As Champagnes go it was utterly delicious and refreshing but clearly showing the style and class to age for a reasonable period of time. I’ve had Pol Chardonnay that I’ve aged for a long time and I see no reason why this would not age just as well. When the 2002 comes out it’ll be cracking!

4/17/2012 - David Strange wrote:

Utter rubbish. Almost no character beyond thin astringency and harsh acid. Filth. Undrinkable filth. Horribly undrinkable filth.

3/31/2012 - David Strange wrote:

As I said when I first tried fine wine at the age of nine, “Wow, wine can smell of lots of different things!” See? I was right even then. This smells of wax and rotting wood, bread and yeast, glue and sulphur. Sulphur is varietal character for Chenin Blanc, by the way, which is why all those South African ones are crap. This is an amazing roller-coaster ride of trippy drugs as far as a nose goes and, just like the roller-coaster ride of trippy drugs, it may not all be totally nice, but it really moves you and awakens all the recesses of your mind to new and exciting possibilities. There’s not really any fruit, and it’s not much like any conventional fizz, but by my hairy bums do I love it. I find it really attractive, actually, there is so much to keep coming back to and appreciate in more and richer depth. Big bottoms! The palate is even better! Let’s get this out the way first: Oooooowwwwww! Ooooooooooowwwww! Yowch! It’s really acidic and hurts my poor stomach like you would not repeat to a polite member of society. But there is an incredible richness and depth to it which keeps this in perfect balance. The flavours are complex, unusual and winning, with toasty breadiness competing with waxed lemon rinds and all sorts of other weirdy oddities for the strongest of a dazzling array of forceful characters. It’s extremely long and, despite the power of a lot of the flavours, sort-of delicate. It’ll age and improve in a kind of way for decades, but if you open this now you’ll howl with delight at it’s off-the-wall but ultimately personable charms. Amazing; we drink wines to be flabbergasted by things like this, yet it’s only £16 and it’s only at the start of a long, intriguing journey. Buy all you can.

3/28/2012 - David Strange Likes this wine:

This is a dense, almost meaty wine on the nose, but that intensity is in terms of fruit and earthiness rather than alcohol and over-ripeness. There is a lot to it, that much is certain, and it is very assertive. But as it is complex and stylish, showing this personality with élan I have no problems with that. The palate asserts its personality with forceful confidence, which is to say it is a bit tough. You’d sort of expect that from a big 2006, but there is plenty more going on here to like. The fruit is deep and powerful, I love the rich earthy character and the acidity is really lively. It’s odd I feel I would prefer a wine significantly older than when I pop them, but this would be better in another five years, or four years ago. As it was I did enjoy it, particularly with what we drank it with (a large, rare, brilliant steak), but did feel a slight lick of severity from its attentions.

3/24/2012 - David Strange Likes this wine:

A massive, burly beast. Feel that fire!

3/24/2012 - David Strange wrote:

This was quite attractive but lacking complexity. It definitely will not age - such an oxidative style. I felt somewhat let down.

3/24/2012 - David Strange wrote:

Limpid love-liquid. Ripe, ravishing yet refined.

3/14/2012 - David Strange wrote:

A gloriously expressive nose bursting with youthful fruit but showing hints of soft maturity. This is well up for plucking and ravishing with great delight. The fruit is really Charmes, very complex and highly attractive. There is a strong earthiness which is intricate in character. It just smells amazing, all one could ask from a 2001 Grand Cru Burgundy and a lot more. The palate is gloriously refined and elegant with plenty of sprightly fruit, good earthiness and a sophisticated tannic structure that keeps the whole thing lively and full of energy. The acidity is spot on too. The finish lasts and lasts. What a wine, totally pleasing and definitely for drinking now with almost indescribable pleasure. You know, you can still buy this from the Wine Society for £55 a bottle and if you are a member you should be buying some at the end of this sentence.

9/11/2011 - David Strange Likes this wine:

I cannot deny there is more than a suggestion of Beaujolais bubble-gum fruit on this nose which, at best, only approaches being so interesting, but there is more… Who’d have thought it from a Beaujolais nose, but there is a distinct minerality on show here – it is pretty complex. These aromas are not overt, but are all pretty tightly bound up together; it is a young wine and I think this nose will have more to show when it settles down a bit. I am quite staggered by the seriousness of the tannic structure this palate has, it must be the most severe Fleurie the world has ever seen. I rather like that. I rather like the acidity that energises the pretty fruit as well. Again, this seems a very young wine and those elements are perhaps not in absolute accord, but the constitution of the palate is quite extraordinary for a Beaujolais and I cannot help but find myself rather impressed by it. If you are one of those people who believe that ageing Beaujolais is a valid use of cellar-space then this is a must buy. Those aficionados who are less off their chump should try this toward the end of the year and expect to be impressed by a distinctly profound example of the style.

9/11/2011 - David Strange Likes this wine:

I feel I have been mentioning the colour of red wines recently more often than is merited, so I am not going to say that this is really very pale. Oh. The nose has a totally beautiful purity of fruit that is clearly expressive both of classy Pinot in general and highly attractive Volnay specifically. It is suffused with an intricate minerality that is impressively sophisticated whilst being extremely minimalist and elegant in character. This nose is totally exquisite, a real smasher for the lover of sculpted gorgeousness. Cripes this is good. The palate may have a structure that might give a fleeting impression of approaching being imposing, but with its winsome fruit, finely-honed acidity and subtle minerality this tastes really seductive as well. And, by arse, do those winning flavours last and last, with more complexity unfolding for an age after you swallow (there are no circumstances you would want to spit this). This is manifestly breathtaking Volnay and I think the fingerprints of the Domaine of origin are smeared all over it like mush on a baby's face at feeding time. An inspiring wine that has roused deep feelings in me. Beyond lovely now but I suppose we should be starting to pop them in 5-7 years. Not sure I could wait that long, to be honest.

9/11/2011 - David Strange Likes this wine:

L'Arlot are often overlooked when people seek quality Nuits, but judging by the lavishly hedonistic glories present on this nose perhaps we are mistaken to do so. I know 2002s are a bit on the 'tits out for the boys'-end of the Burgundy spectrum in general, but this is a stirringly ravishing nose. It is certainly Nuits, with its dark fruit profile, suggestions of undergrowth and rich earthiness, but its complex, compelling aromas are sybaritic in the extreme. If you wanted to charm a Burgundy neophyte with a bottle of Nuits you'd dream of giving them a wine like this to smell. They'd love to taste it, too. It has enough rigour to the tannins to make it a good example of Nuits, and I think the acid level is perfectly correct, but the ripe, lascivious fruit and powerfully opulent minerality transform the palate into one of joyously profligate dissolution. This is quite brilliant Nuits but definitely for the louche, rakish pleasure seeker - I can manage that and damned well too. It'll last for a decade-plus but bloody well go for it, boys and girls, then rip some clothes off and growl in the most indelicate manner you can manage.

9/7/2011 - David Strange Does not like this wine:

Bloody hell, does this smell of anything at all?[1] If I strain my most acutely trained and finely honed of tasting faculties I think I might be able to discern a suggestion of yeastiness and maybe even something, that with the application of my active and slightly unhinged imagination, could have a vague resemblance to fruit. But sweaty tests to that! This nose is bland, torpid and tedious, matched only in anodyne character by the wit and erudition displayed in the lunchtime banter at a Trappist monastery. Arse, it is staggeringly dreary. The palate pushes back the boundaries of insipid, anaemic boredom. So devoid of character is it that I am more able to detect the flavour of my tonsils than the wine. What really worries me is that I have drank at least several bottles of this wine, indeed exchanged actual money I could have used for Burgundy or fizzy cherry sweets to get it, because it was preferable to what else was on offer. The staggeringly noisome qualities of things worse than this lacklustre contrivance so perturb me that the trip to Spain has been burnt from my diary with a laser and I’ll go and visit my chum Jeremy in Burgundy this October with the instruction that any appearance of Spanish whites will result in the agonisingly severe application of my Singapore Judicial. If, most likely given threats of having to drink something as execrable as Cava, I were forced to endure such a soulless entity of woe just to satisfy my white wine requirements the only path open to me would be to repeatedly force cocktail sticks violently into my sinuses just to prevent sensory deprevation. I must make it luridly clear that spending money on this wine will only leave you weeping with bleak depression; mind-bendingly sub-interest. Get some Sherry, it is cheaper and better.

9/7/2011 - David Strange Does not like this wine:

For those who are interested in this kind of thing, it is rather pale in colour. Doesn’t really tell you a scintilla of information about how it is going to taste, of course, but some people get all worked up about colour. It really does smell of Chambolle, though, all that pretty fruit, refinement and elegance. I’d say it is not the most complex of noses, but it is unequivocally a decidedly attractive set of aromas for a village wine. Sticking your nose in this is fun! The palate also has plenty of lovely fruit but absolute bitch loads of really spiky acidity which is so immoderate in its intensity the palate ultimately lacks harmony and categorically makes this taste far from the alluring little charmer the nose promised. I can just about manage to taste over that harshness and the tannins are pretty good and there is some length, but where is the love, the lust and the lubricity? Nowhere in this wine. I would have expected riper charms from a 2002 that would be beginning to show in a most delightful manner, but tasting this is too much of a trial by acid. If you need to make a mouth ulcer ignite your mind with pain this would be a great thing to be swilling around your mouth, but if you want a properly beezer bottle of pretty, pleasure-suffused Chambolle this will just leave you dispirited.

9/2/2011 - David Strange Does not like this wine:

By freaking arse this has the most utterly repellent and loathsome nose I’ve ever encountered! I use the word ‘repellent’ advisedly as it positively reeks of purest flyspray. There is bugger all else there apart from insecticide – it is disgusting, seriously disgusting! I am going to leave my glass for a bit and go and rant to my guests about how people who abuse Riesling like this should have their toes cut off with rusty garden shears. OK, it is ten minutes later, I’ve calmed down somewhat, and I am amazed (and rather pleased) to report that the bug poison aspects have largely gone. I can just detect them under the surface desperate to leap out and massacre blowflies, but the main aroma is quite nice, although depressingly one-dimensional, lime fruit. Nicer, but dull as particularly prosaic dishwater. The palate is nice to drink. It has good enough acidity, reasonable sugar levels and some lime fruit. But it, too, is also definitely of the humdrum idiom. It is so simple you’ve almost got to wonder if the winemaker has added a bit of bleach to the fermentation tanks to strip out a bit of flavour – Riesling surely cannot be so banal? Indeed, if I owned a vineyard producing such utterly tedious Riesling I’d get an ampelographer to check I didn’t have some vastly inferior clone planted and a psychiatrist to check the winemaker didn’t have a pathological aversion to flavour. For sure, once the noisome fly spray aroma has gone you can drink this easily enough but you’ll be frighteningly bored and generally disenchanted by the end of your first glass. It is just so dreary. This definitely sub-interest, and I almost feel it would wear that epithet with pride.

8/27/2011 - David Strange Likes this wine:

Glorious blueberry, plummy fruit bursts from this nose. The alcohol is a tad higher than the previous wine but I see nothing lacking in terms of ultimate harmony. It is a swashbuckling, vigorous nose (just as I’d expect at this age) but everything is in the right place and shows flashes of great things to come in the future. At the moment the palate is perhaps most suitable for the brawny lover of red-blooded hedonism, but this is not an over-blown, over-whelming fighting wine – it is a damned good young Hermitage from what is clearly a top bunny vintage for this producer. It is true I usually prefer minimalist, sculpted little beauties, but when a wine can manage such levels of stirring vehemence and still do that whole harmony thing I’ll drink the bleeder with a big grin slapped across my face. Good stuff, needs time.

8/27/2011 - David Strange Likes this wine:

A powerful, dense nose suffused with monumental fruit and splendidly complex minerality. We are told that Hermitage is the manliest wine of France and I can see plenty of strapping, virile characters here. You couldn’t really describe this nose as charged with minimalist finesse , but I think if you expect that in a ripe vintage, young Hermitage you need to re-adjust your stylistic expectations. I am really taken with this nose. The palate has a great Hermitage tannic structure; rigorous, but in exemplary harmony with the rich fruit. The acidity seems spot on to me too. This is incredibly long, leaving you will much to think about as the flavours slowly subside on your palate. A serious Hermitage that I will open my next bottle of in at least ten years time.

8/27/2011 - David Strange Likes this wine:

I popped a bottle of the 2008 Cuvee Gaby not so long ago. I liked that then and I like this now. The alcohol level of the nose is a tad higher than the 2008, but it is still far from being hot or unbalanced. There is lovely, refined fruit as well and it is not short on earthy aromas. The nose makes me think it is suffering somewhat from being in a middle-aged hole, but there is still plenty to relish here. The palate is a model of Crozes delight; ravishing fruit, tannins on the right side of rigorous, as is the acidity and it speaks of its appellation in terms of its mineral components. I should have popped this a year ago or waited about five more, but it is a winning Crozes.

8/27/2011 - David Strange Likes this wine:

It is the darkest Fino I have ever seen, real golden/amber tones present. Even though it is only 15% it smells incredibly potent and profound; the depth of character it displays is quite arresting. There are all the Fino nutty aromas one would hope for, but they are quite striking in terms of their power and complexity. Brilliant stuff to sniff. The palate also has a prodigious density and layers of complex flavours charged with energy. It is pretty god-damned concentrated too. The finish just lasts and lasts. I think this is the best Fino I have ever tried and it cost me a mere £7.95 a bottle – an obscene bargain for such a captivating wine.

6/30/2011 - David Strange Likes this wine:

I love the ripe fruit on the nose, it is somewhere between raspberries and blackberries in character. As I only have a passing interest in fruit unless it has been pressed and fermented I don’t know the name of such a fruit, but I can assure you it smells delicious. There is a herbaceous aroma to it that doesn’t smell unripe in the textbook ‘green’ sense, but it is definitely leafy. It is clearly ripe, but there is nary a hint of an alcohol burn. No silliness with vast amounts of new oak, either. It is a complex nose of real personality with that unknown fruit, savoury leafiness and a totally winning stone/earth scent bound up together in beguiling harmony making it a delight to sniff. Yum. The acid and tannin on the palate have a very slight suggestion of spikiness, but as far as I am concerned the mouthfeel is that of a properly elegant and refined wine which delivers its classy characters with a cool, sophisticated ease. That spikiness is a product of the wine’s youth. Even given its attractive elegance right now I feel my vinous sense tingling to say this has a shed-load more pleasure to give in the future; I will definitely be keeping my other two bottles. I cannot think of a better young Cabernet Franc I’ve tasted since the sadly departed glory days of Joguet in the early ninties. Cracking kit.

6/22/2011 - David Strange Likes this wine:

Given my reasonably comprehensive exposure to Tempier wines I think this shows precisely what one seeks in mature Miguoa – it has soft, scented fruit, that has a hint of dirtiness to it (thanks to the Brett) and a powerfully rich earthiness. There are shades of leathery, meatiness to it, but in Miguoa these are always more subdued than in the other single vineyard wines thanks to its lower proportion of Mourvedre. For all its ‘unwashed animal’s rude bits’ aromas, this is a real charmer of a nose, giving, open and really complex. I love the palate, too, which has soft, ripe tannins showing not a hint of toughness, brilliantly mature fruit and that powerful earthiness that these wines showed so well before the 2001 style shift. This is absolutely a point, top-hole kit that reminds me of many happy experiences in the past.

6/22/2011 - David Strange wrote:

Now this is more in the leathery, meaty zone as far as expressions of Bandol go. Not short on ripe but mature dark fruit, though, and it pulses with vigorous earthy complexity. It does seem accessible on the nose, but not as suggestively open and welcoming as the Miguoa. Even though this is 12 years old there is still more than a shade of rigour to the tannic structure. That being said I think the harmony is just fine, as there is an abundance of dark fruit and rich minerality keeping things balanced and enjoyable. If you like classic expressions of high Mourvedre-content Bandol you would be pleased as chips to try this, and chuffed as punch if you kept it for a few more years. Great stuff, I can totally understand the view I held when first I encountered Bandol that La Tourtine was the best one could get.

6/2/2011 - David Strange Likes this wine:

This has a very appealing nose: lots of crunchy, fresh fruit, a refreshing leafiness[1] and light, refined minerality. It may not be throbbing with poly-dimensional amazement, but it is totally at ease with its accessible pleasures. It would have been so easy to treat this to more than a suggestion of toasty new oak but is only the better for not having been ravished like this. For a very affordable bottle I am cock-a-hoop with this nose. The palate plays with ideas of freshness, rigour and softness. The acid and stemmy characteristics are fresh, the tannins rigorous and the fruit and minerality deliciously soft. Again, not the most complex of wines, but I am finding it hard not to be won-over by its approachable personality. Drink over the next few years.

6/2/2011 - David Strange Likes this wine:

This nose is delightfully pretty, charged with fresh fruit and a lovely floral character. Not overbearing, not heavy, just charmingly accessible. Sometimes in ‘traditional’ Italian regions winemakers feel they have to follow the traditional practise of extended oxidative ageing in barrels which, in my view, robs the wines of a lot of energy and vim – none of that nonsense here. No silliness with new oak, either, which I approve of in Nebbiolo. Quite complex too. The alcohol level really is moderate, not the slightest hint of a burn. It is so dainty, so graceful, so appealing in a small-scale manner – I love sniffing this. So I’ll have a taste. Crivens that is really tannic. Very, very tannic indeed. I don’t think it is too dry or hard for the fruit level, but so well-endowed with structure that the dissonance between the winsome little primary-school girl of a nose and the testosterone and steroid-soaked weight-lifter palate is quite extraordinary. The acidity is refreshing if a tad intense. There really is enough of that pretty fruit to keep one from getting worried about the ultimate harmony and it is not short on complexity and length. It’ll age well, I feel. I may be wildly wrong about this, but I feel this has similarities to the almost-extinct type of Burgundy that was made in a hilariously extracted but very low alcohol style. When young such wines seem hard, perhaps even acrid, and maybe a tad thin, but the very best of them can blossom into beautifully scented old lovelies if you can cellar them for long enough to be properly mature. I like this wine – it is an unconventional style yet has what it needs where it needs it in order to engage the enlightened drinker.

5/14/2011 - David Strange Likes this wine:

Now this is what quality Nuits smells like: brooding, dark fruit with a complex earthiness that demands you keep on swirling and agitating your glass so it’ll reveal more of it’s manly nose-candy. It does need agitating, it is suffering somewhat from being in a middle aged hole, but there is enough class and sophistication on show to mark this out as a wine of at least double-A superlativeness. Yeah, top Nuits action. By arse the palate is almost intimidatingly structured, that is what one expects from middle-aged Nuits – I really deserve a dunce’s cap on and be made to stand in the corner until I am repentant for showing this wine to guests when it is not at a totally charming stage in it’s development. Tests to that, though, I am enjoying this a lot even if my guests say, “It is a bit dry”. It isn’t at all dry. Yeah the structure is rigorous, but the rich minerality, wonderfully intertwined with great acid and more than enough ripe fruit keep this wine balanced and rather toothsome. The finish is impressively long and sophisticated. It is great stuff, but, and I’m being serious now, don’t pop yours now unless you are vastly braver with a blender than I am.

5/11/2011 - David Strange Likes this wine:

The fruit on the nose is incredibly powerful with the most pronounced pear character I’ve experienced outside of the ripe Williams’ pears from the tree in the garden I was lucky enough to scale as a youth. It has such density and definition it really engages the faculties, and yet the fruit is really fresh and compelling. All of the experience of a young, vibrant wine is here with this set of aromas, and yet (based on my reasonably broad experience of white Hermitage, which is to say I’ve had about 35 in my entire life) I can see this is only going to grow in personality and enjoyment value. The palate is quite a mouthful, big and structured, with enough acidity and mineral excitement to keep it lithe and edgy. The density of fruit is amazing. It is clearly a baby, but oh, oh yeah, how I love this. In all seriousness you want to come back in ten or more years, I am really rather taken with this bottle, though.

4/20/2011 - David Strange Likes this wine:

Sorry, I was a bit wrecked when I drank this so my note was not expressive in terms of detail. It reads: Wow, this is incredibly sweet and charged with a frankly terrifying amount of acidity. I'm impressed and also in rather a lot of pain. Brilliant, I tell you, brilliant.