4/18/2024 - DK Amateur wrote:

First half, drunk immediately after opening over an hour: Red fruits including some slightly sour redcurrant and creamily textured raspberry, with an edge of smoky notes. Apparently some carbon dioxide in the mouth, and high acidity. Delicious, but not quite coherent on this occasion. Look forward to the second half. Perhaps the Zalto burgundy glass was not the right one.

4/4/2024 - DK Amateur Likes this wine:

Deep yellow. Exciting nose of apples and yellow plums on a foundation of oak, very enticing and inviting. Big in the mouth (14 % ABV). Like a low-alcohol sherry based on meursault and sort of remotely related to old-fashioned, heavily oaked white Rioja, e.g. Marques de Murrieta from the 1980s rather than Lopez de Heredia now or then. Two days later it showed much less apple.

3/30/2024 - DK Amateur wrote:

This was very tasty with its brioche and meaty character. It seemed to have some bottle age and came across as nearly off dry. Easy-drinking and lovely.

3/26/2024 - DK Amateur wrote:

At more than four years of age, this grillo is most pleasing, showing minerals and discrete peach, soft texture, dry but with low acidity. Very nice.

3/22/2024 - DK Amateur wrote:

Fairly dark for a Beaujolais and smooth and juicy, just lovely with all sorts of food, from fish to venison.

3/16/2024 - DK Amateur Likes this wine:

With some air, this shows traditional white Rioja aromas: lots of oak, bergamot and perhaps anise and butterscotch and a greenish aromatic tinge. Very much a complete whole with a great texture from the oak. It resembles to some extent the whites of Lopez de Heredia and also the much missed Marques de Murrieta white reserva from the 1980s (and apparently as divisive as they were), yet it is also modern and clean. And only 12.5 %ABV. Great out of the Zalto burgundy glass.

3/15/2024 - DK Amateur Likes this wine:

Interesting to compare with Château Leroy-Beauval 2022 blanc which is also 100% sauvignon blanc with some oak. Picque Caillou is lighter but also more layered and with more oak. In some way it is even better in its crispness.

3/14/2024 - DK Amateur wrote:

This is not obviously sauvignon but has peach and smoke in the nose. Considerable body (14 % ABV), very precise, no obvious oak, but perhaps a slightly bitter finish that disappears with air. For now it is great stuff, especially considering the price. Quite different than the Picque Caillou 2021 which has some of the same ingredients.

3/10/2024 - DK Amateur wrote:

Pale red. Red-fruited, lightly spicy, beautiful wine. Creamy texture, at one point like a Chambolle made with redcurrants (but there are also hints of raspberries). Fine aftertaste. All the same, on the expensive side. If I were rich, I would use it as a house wine.

3/8/2024 - DK Amateur wrote:

This has a really pleasing texture. but I couldn't figure out the aromas. At first they were citrus and spices but then sort of vanished. It is well-balanced and dry, has no oak and is a pleasure to drink.

3/1/2024 - DK Amateur wrote:

This should not be too cold and needs a little air to show its best: almonds, stones, and discrete citrus, with a good texture. Mineral rather than fruity. I quite like it.

2/17/2024 - DK Amateur wrote:

Not my usual style but not overdone. At 14% ABV it is even quite elegant and shows dark fruit in a fairly smooth frame.

2/16/2024 - DK Amateur Likes this wine:

From memory. This is really fine now. At opening, it shows a great cherry intensity with good acidity. Really elegant in the mouth. Lovely wine.

2/16/2024 - DK Amateur wrote:

This had an initially quite oxydised nose, with some apples. Big woody taste. Quite special in its way though a bit crude, but very good food wine.

2/9/2024 - DK Amateur wrote:

Drunk over two days. Very straightforward and pleasing riesling with more than a passing resemblance to chablis. Mineral, citrus and some very discrete fermentation aromas, not quite sponti. Juicy, lovely wine. Will hold but does not seem to have any hidden depths.

2/6/2024 - DK Amateur wrote:

This was opened last Friday and tasted somewhat inattentively, then I became ill, and today (Tuesday) I had the last glass. It was bordering on the heavy and clumsy on Friday, but the glass I had today was magic (because I was recovering from illness?), and weird: very sweet for a dry wine and especially lacking in acidity, there was also a little oxydation after four days' opening, and a clear feeling of too much of a good thing. Yet how not like it? All of it seemed tasty and wonderful, and while you wouldn't want to live in a baroque palace with no right angles or plain surfaces anywhere, staying for a night might be a lot of fun.

1/19/2024 - DK Amateur Likes this wine:

This seems much more interesting to drink now than the 2021. Of course, it would benefit from 15 years in the cellar, but the highly intense nose and its stern mineral, citrus and restrained tropical notes are very attractive now. The luscious mouthfeel leads to a strong acidity. At only 7.5 % ABV it is tempting to empty the bottle in a very short time. Certainly, a Kabinett with a very strong character.

1/11/2024 - DK Amateur wrote:

This seemed to me to be exemplary chianti, full of intense cherry fruit and a highly attractive feeling of sourness. Just a wonderful wine!

1/5/2024 - DK Amateur wrote:

Leaner than I recalled but full of aromatic intensity. Still an excellent wine though simpler (of course) than Roth Lay.

12/31/2023 - DK Amateur Likes this wine:

This was more complete than the glass recently tasted. Elegant and pure and wonderfully attractive.

12/31/2023 - DK Amateur wrote:

This was dark, big and luxurious. It is warm and welcoming and carries its 15% gracefully.

12/31/2023 - DK Amateur wrote:

This should have had more air. It came across as very reticent, just showing mineral and oystery coolness, as if from afar.

12/30/2023 - DK Amateur wrote:

Raisins, caramel and licorice. Lightly sweet and though low on acidity not cloying at all. Excellent with a blue cheese.

12/29/2023 - DK Amateur wrote:

Tastes like a sauvignon blanc with some sweetness and oak and not much more in terms of botrytis. At the price, is is certainly not bad and drinks easily; but there are no great complexities here. Nice enough with a tarte tatin.

12/24/2023 - DK Amateur wrote:

This is still very young and has plenty of tannis. It was decanted twenty hours in advance, was very dark and quite fragrant but bordering on the raw in the mouth. More useful with cheese than dessert for the time being. Give it ten more years.

12/23/2023 - DK Amateur Does not like this wine:

I have had many good bottles from Jadot but this was not among them. It had green vegetal flavours that were far from charming and lacked any burgundian attraction.

12/22/2023 - DK Amateur wrote:

This was very interesting, quite different stylistically from, say, Blandy's. It is sweet but not very much, and the acidity is enormous while aromas (raisins and smoky lava notes) are ethereal. Excellent drink and very good with a complicated dessert.

12/16/2023 - DK Amateur wrote:

We drank it over an hour, and it was very pleasing, but not without sharpness. The grapefruit bitterness never quite disappeared, as I would have imagined. Looking forward to next bottle.

12/2/2023 - DK Amateur wrote:

This was heavily oxydized but not in a way that worries a sherry lover. Good structure, very lively and not at all old.

12/2/2023 - DK Amateur wrote:

This had surprisingly smoky and blackish fruit, nearly like La Rioja Alta's 904 reserva. Juicy, well-balanced, and open for business.

12/1/2023 - DK Amateur wrote:

Clear transparent colour. Beautiful floral nose. Easy-drinking, with good acidity and a core of sweetness. Lovely.

12/1/2023 - DK Amateur wrote:

Mineral with some wood, perhaps not terribly complex but classic and tasty.

11/24/2023 - DK Amateur wrote:

Classic middle Mosel, quite mineral with pure fruit aged into mellow, even lactic flavours. Excellent, like all the Paulinshof wine.

11/18/2023 - DK Amateur Likes this wine:

Bottled 2022. I have had this before but never such a wonderful bottling. Served very cool (yesterday it was drunk outdoors in 5 degrees celsius), it was smooth and moderately sweet and full of sexy dark fruit that made me think of a St Julien.

11/15/2023 - DK Amateur wrote:

Almost brown, though mostly golden. Aged, honeyed white with some sweetness, a little less than an old spätlese. Good body, a bit short in aftertaste. Fine stuff.

11/11/2023 - DK Amateur wrote:

From double magnum. After short aeration this showed a formidable dark spicy nose, rather like an excellent Rioja. In the mouth it thinned perhaps a bit towards the end but on the whole it was a really good showing for ar wine that is not terribly expensive.

11/11/2023 - DK Amateur wrote:

Excellent spicy and white-fruited wine with good balance. If there is any oak in it, it is rather discrete.

11/11/2023 - DK Amateur wrote:

This had perhaps a little note of madeirization but also a coherent character of aged white which I liked quite a lot. I must admit, however, that the 2021 was better and not just fresher.

11/3/2023 - DK Amateur Likes this wine:

Opened and drunk over two hours, Zalto burgundy glass.After some air it is floral and sweet as well as cranberry sour. Tannic but tannins are on the sweet side, so great to drink now with food. I agree with ROBMCL920 who describes it better than me. Auction price is now more than ten times the price 12 years ago.

10/27/2023 - DK Amateur wrote:

This was very mineral, quite stern and had high acidity. Very tasty but seems to need ageing. Best on the second day but, as all the Paulinshof wines I have tried, pure and aromatic int he finest Mosel way.

10/28/2023 - DK Amateur Likes this wine:

I was told this was 2016, but the vintage is not stated on the label, except as part of the lot code. Disgorged in November 2020, 100% pinot noir. Rosé colour. This combines meatiness and good body with notes of strawberry in a mineral version and a little apple. Great aftertaste that goes on and on. I don't know a champagne quite like this but the quality is definitely there.

10/21/2023 - DK Amateur wrote:

This had all the elements for a great 904 but they did not seem to have come together yet. Less sooty than the 2001.

10/20/2023 - DK Amateur Likes this wine:

Lively wine with lots of wood: brioche, yeast and good body, an excellent food wine.

10/16/2023 - DK Amateur Likes this wine:

Two identical bottles, briefly decanted, Zalto universal. This is a dense but elegant and well-balanced dark wine. There is even a really good acidity, with an Italian feel to it. It accompanied excellent steaks, something we rarely eat but served to two wonderful neighbors who appreciated the whole thing very much. Steaks and wine were à point, and the wine had plenty of life left.

10/13/2023 - DK Amateur wrote:

Another Paulinshof beauty, curiously with a buttery richness, that surpises me for the vineyard, for a Kabinett trocken and for the vintage.

10/13/2023 - DK Amateur wrote:

This has developed in a very positive way. Ten or fifteen years ago it wasn't the most elegant Mosel, but by now its unusual richness, comparatively low acidity and 10% ABV (!) have melted into a rich, mature and fairly harmonious whole, accompanying an apple tart very convincingly.

10/6/2023 - DK Amateur wrote:

This was a very straightforward natural orange wine, with a lot of sediment, spontaneous fermentation nose, some tannin, and clear aromas of apples, even to the point of resembling a cidre from Normandy. Generally liked at the tasting where it was served.

10/6/2023 - DK Amateur Likes this wine:

Leftovers from a tasting two days ago. This was very divisive, and even to me it seemed a lot weirder than I recall the 2017 to be. This had a smoky malt whisky note and a very firm structure, bordering on the unforgiving. Yet I really like this austere style which is multiply aromatic.

10/6/2023 - DK Amateur Likes this wine:

Leftovers from a tasting two days ago. This continues to develop in new directions. It has dark aromas that seem to be mineral, spontaneous fermentation-like, and all sorts of other things. Very complex, always distinctive and great stuff.

10/6/2023 - DK Amateur Likes this wine:

Briefly noted from a bottle used for a tasting two days ago. Very clearly a sauvignon blanc but now with the added bonus of a wooden foundation (there is about 1/3 barrique involved): this works wonderfully well because it is so crisp and persistent. I love this wine!