8/7/2019 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

This is starting to come around, and was drunk with much pleasure after about 1hr slow-ox in bottle. Fruit has become more savory with a subtle spiciness over layer upon layer of herb, mineral and soil tones. Silky and a touch lean on the palate with good energy from acid, but neither shrill nor hard. The tannin remains somewhat unresolved, but nicely fine grained. Has the stuffing to wait for those tertiary notes to come around, but quite pleasurable here at the front end of its drinking window.

7/1/2019 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Like CWEISS, the prior 3 bottles I've drunk over the past six months have been more advanced than anticipated and starting to oxidize. Last night's, however, was severely premoxed and ended up down the drain. Three bottles left out of 2 cases, and drinking up. Earlier drunk bottles were quite good, and this is a vintage I really liked.
7/17: less advanced than 7/1 bottle, but with obvious oxidative note

4/30/2017 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Corked

3/16/2016 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Corked

12/25/2015 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Corked

11/26/2015 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

My favorite Rhys wine tasted so far, and among the best American whites I've been fortunate to drink. Deep, complex, and utterly delicious; a seamless progression of precise fruit and mineral tones, honeyed pear, preserved lemon, hazelnut oil, carroway, ginger, petrichor. The weight and texture of Grand Cru Burgundy, deftly oaked, a touch lactic, varietally correct and terroir-specific, but most all an exquisite expression of pure pleasure.

7/3/2015 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

A mature garnet core with wide watery rims. Cool on the nose, spicy with a light Pernand pungency. Mature but still tasting of fresh, bright red cherry fruit that sweetens on the midpalate along with savory and tangy inflections of soil, spice, and blood orange. Silky mouthfeel, like soft flower petals, and a lingering, grippy finish. Elegant, pure, and if perhaps lacking the body and density of more structured vintages, neither scrawny nor hollowed out, and possessing that perfumed, fine-boned, early-maturing charm the best '07s share.

Mmmmmm... hmmmmm.... yes, this Pierre is worthy of contemplation, and I'm so pleased to find myself alone with the last third of the bottle following dinner. Hey, pairs well with Roxy Music! Fifteen of these drunk since last Summer? More to the point, have I really only 2 left?!

6/21/2015 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Quite a range of notes on this wine, and fortunately this bottle showed much more like JNEWMAN77 and RICHARDSLD's Jan-2015 TNs. The bottle was stood-up for about a month after receiving it mid-May of this year (arriving at my retailer in Dec-2014 from KL if that helps to identify the batch). A significant amount of sediment on the decant including some very fine grained particulates as per usual for Nebbiolo. Mature but not over-the-hill, this bottle seemed to be drinking at peak or just barely past peak. Lovely floral notes on the nose and palate hovering over the warm, sweet autumnal qualities of the fruit and tertiary sous bois. The first glass poured was even a bit tight and the wine maintained good grip throughout with a nice hit of spice and earth on yhe finish. Two more bottles which will likely be drunk sooner than later.

5/19/2015 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

A touch musty on the cork-pull, but a few swirls in the glass and everything snapped right into place. Bright translucent ruby. Ripe, perfumed, spicy red fruit over a gorgeously satiny texture, good freshness and crunch. No apparent wood, no jammy/roasted '97 sur maturite, not a foul note to be found. Exotic and silky, charming and sumptuous, an absolutely joyous wine. This bottle seemed at peak.

4/13/2015 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

I don't often post a second TN on a single wine, but this one offers so much exquisite pleasure I couldn't resist. Easily among my very favorite Beaujolais crus of the '09 vintage, each bottle displayed that barest whiff of VA, that absolutely perfect dollop of volatility that lifts the perfumes and flavors into something utterly ethereal and totally captivating. As before, a glorious bouquet of violets and dark fruit waft from the glass all the way across the table upon the first pour, so deep and heady with wild blackberries, licorice, and immense florality. The mouthfeel is lavish and rich, yet utterly fresh and lifted, more linear than round, its granitic terroir totally on display, and that perfected Platonic ideal of volatility supporting a sweet bouquet of inner mouth perfume. Swooon. Swoooooooonnnnnn! Long, juicy, immensely satisfying, and totally my huckleberry.

4/1/2015 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Slow-ox'd for an hour and drunk over two and a half. The extra long cork was absolutely pristine - no crumbling, no streaking - and pulled free with a satisfying pop. Color was deep and dark with very little browning or bricking. Mature tones on the nose, along with anise and a hint of cherry fruit, to which notes of smoke and leather emerge on the palate. Harmonious and delicate with a silky texture and fine grained, nearly resolved tannins. Good evolution over the course of the evening, starting out a touch tired before gaining its feet, retreating into a bit of mute state about an hour in, then re-emerging with more complexity and assertiveness. Last glass best. This has thrown a decent amount of sediment, including some very fine particulates, and I will stand up for at least a week and carefully decant the next bottle. This wine is in a great drinking window now, and should remain there for several years assuming good provenance and storage conditions. Purchased Aug-2014.

3/15/2015 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Ponderously heavy and overripe on entry, nearly saved by strong acidity and a prickle of CO2, but its inherent fault is laid bare on the finish where the alcohol becomes the overwhelming element, bitter like a boozy Bayer® aspirin broth and utterly distasteful.

So what (for me) went wrong here? Terry Theise's thoughts on the vintage are instructive and I quote a good bit of them here: "It’s a vintage of muscle and density, often magnificent, occasionally overdone, usually superb. It is an especially resplendent vintage for Grüner Veltliner. Theirs is an innate fineness even with all that density and richness. Part of this has to do with the absence of botrytis, which is ill-suited for most dry wines and which gives them an unpleasant bitterness."

Terry continues: "... The worst of the ‘06s are not bitter, they are alcoholically medicinal and absurdly exaggerated. They are taller than the room they stand in, so that their heads go crashing through the ceiling. I think 2006 will turn out to have been one of those instructive years in Austria, because if there was a single common mistake, it was over-ripeness brought on by growers’ desires to wait for the physio thing. I confess I’m of two minds as regards the physio thing. In part I agree that physiological ripeness; i.e., ripeness of skins, stems and seeds, is important for many reasons. But, if you wait and wait for it you risk precisely the over-ripeness with which some ‘06s have to contend – especially if you insist on fermenting to full dryness.

"2006 was an almost perfectly clean harvest, and I winced at the number of wines lost to this obsession with absolute (I would say extreme) dryness; every one of them would have made gorgeous wines with 10-15 g.l. residual sugar and 13.5% alc, but instead we get no RS and 14.5% (and even higher) alcohol, and such wines are unpleasant.

"Cards on the table: I do not like very high-alcohol wines. Knowing that the line I draw is arbitrary, I nonetheless draw it at 14%. It has to be drawn somewhere and it might as well be there. I’m just not drinking heavy-ass wines any more. My senses don’t like them, my food doesn’t like them, and my entire somatic system is depressed by them. If you feel otherwise, you’ll like many of the Austrian ‘06s that I found overstated and grotesque."

12/2/2014 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Excellent showing! Purchased from a private cellar that acquired the bottle at release, this was mature but hardly over the hill. Color was deep with only slight bricking, fruit quite vibrant, mouthfeel dense and rich but retaining good energy on the palate and grip on the finish, oak still a bit too prominent for my tastes but nicely framing the plummy cherry and spice notes. Surprising absolutely no one, it was a marvelous accompaniment to some meltingly delicious beef short ribs.

10/30/2014 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Nose is dark, piquant, pungent, and resinous, displaying archetypal Savigny goût de terroir. A touch rustic and stalky immediately upon entry, but sticky red fruits with dark, soil-inflected overtones quickly envelope the palate and sweeten through the long, sappy, mouth-watering finish. Tannins are not entirely resolved, but thoroughly saturated by the fruit. At $37, only a very slight premium over your standard SLB village, and I think totally worth it. Along with the Auxey-Duresses, my favorite of the Ben Leroux negoce wines tasted, especially from a price/quality perspective.

7/25/2014 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

A bit of a low fill, but the cork pulled clean with a satisfying pop. Translucent, slight orange tint, and some tiny flakes of sediment remained suspended after decanting. Nose and palate very clean, still fresh, nary a smidgeon of Brett. Masculine profile, but a restrained, graceful one of leather, cigar, blood, and iron. What fruit remained was pure and clean. Good energy and length with fully resolved tannins. Beautiful. Drunk at Troquet Boston.

7/21/2014 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Charming and spritely, with an exquisitely delicate balance between citric tartness and powdery sweetness. Strawberries, limes, and sugar dust, so inviting and graceful, so energetic, so suavely textured and utterly perfected, with every sip I swoon just a bit. The heart of a hummingbird and maybe a little bit of its soul.

7/20/2014 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Leaner, tauter, less lactic than the Morgeot Les Fairendes and La Maltroie - perhaps a bit more akin to Les Chenevottes - yet nonetheless striking me as rather rich and full for the vintage, but in the very best way. More minerality and spice than fruit at the moment with an imposing structure and a ton of extract on the finish. Not yet ready.

7/20/2014 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Corked.

6/24/2014 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

I'm too much the German wine neophyte to discern typicity, compare to past greatness, or opine on this wine's future. I can say only this is the one of the purest, most perfected, unbelievably righteous wines I've ever tasted. If there's a heaven above, then surely this is the liquid that flows in its mountain streams. You could drink this for an eternity and never tire of its boundless beauty.

6/22/2014 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Corked (375ml)

5/19/2014 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

I evidently like this wine more than the crowd which is a little surprising to me as I generally prefer a more elegant, lightly fruited, gentle, older Rioja - Tondonia GR, Prado Enea, etc. This one, rather, is on the richer, riper, more sweetly fruited end of the spectrum, and still showing quite a youthful profile. The oak is a strong element, as with all Rioja, but here the strong vanillin of French oak seems to predominate over the cedar and dill of American oak. Though not my preferred Rioja profile on paper, I found this to be an excellent wine in the glass and it went beautifully with a big plate of oxtail stuffed piquillo peppers.

5/12/2014 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

I've had two bottles with varying disgorgement dates recently, last night's was 5/16/2012 and another back on Christmas that was 4/16/2010. Liked them both very much, though they showed quite different profiles. The 2010-DG bottle had a considerably more matured profile, perhaps a bit more than it should, along with some notable oxidative notes. But it was still sharp and deep, and very beautiful with a breakfast of buttery scrambled eggs and white truffle shavings. The 2012-DG from last night was considerably fresher than even 2yrs less bottle age would suggest, with an assertive Pinot noir profile that leaned toward the red fruited end of the spectrum on the palate. Rich and vibrant, but very precise and seamless all the way through the lengthy finish. No oxidative notes on the younger bottle. Among the better QPRs I've come across, and I need to buy more!

5/6/2014 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Revisiting this after about a half-year, and even that small amount of time has been so kind. Smoky, flinty, autolytic, and highly mineralic. The fruit is austere on entry, but then develops a beautiful honeyed edge through the finish. Still intensely structured, but mellower. The acidity remains electric, but not as shrill and overwhelming as before. The length is remarkable, pulsing with energy as buckets of extract settle on the tongue like dense, gingery spice. A wonderful village wine, and still very much on the upswing.

I should add that among the 6 bottles I've drunk, none had even a hint of oxidation. Given some questions raised about excessive lees stirring leading to prem-ox, I should note the atypical batonnage performed at this estate. Rather than stirring the lees, they are "vaccumed" off the bottom of the cuve and then dropped through a slow moving fan back into the wine and allowed to settle again. Not sure if this practice is done elsewhere, but I wanted to note it given all the justifiable fears regarding white Burgundy prem-ox and its suggested causes.

5/3/2014 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Corked

4/5/2014 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Cloudy/unfiltered. Nose of spice, stems, plummy fruit, dank earth. Similar in the mouth and lightly structured. Finish is short. Drunk at Washington Sq Tavern, Brookline.

3/27/2014 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

An intense, tightly coiled expression of Vouvray, less rich and sweet than the Huet '10 Secs, and boasting a monumental core of immense promise even more thrillingly electric and deeply wound than the brilliant Le Mont. On the second night, the intensity was dialed back slightly and the flavors broadened revealing rocky orchard fruit awash in honey and ginger on a crystalline web of structure.

3/26/2014 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Excellent weight and concentration for a bourgogne with good fruit expression. It does show that green, barky note common to so many '11s, but here balanced against rich, saturating fruit notes. An exceptional bourgogne.

3/25/2014 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Lemon curd, a touch of canned corn sweetness, marjoram, and other herby, vaguely fern-like notes. Medium weight, very linear and seamless, and quite pleasing. Excellent value.

3/19/2014 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Intensely focused, as fresh and finely etched as a top Chablis despite time under the veil. Rocky orchard fruits. Iodine. A very slight oxidative rustiness married to a steely, concentrated, flint-struck finish that never quite terminates. Harmonious and complete. As great by itself as with food, in focused meditative sips or big refreshing swigs. Three more bottles and I wish it were three dozen. One of the best new white wines I've tasted in at least a year.

3/10/2014 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Prior bottle was corked, and this bottle was brimming with 4-EG Brett (the smoky, shitty kind, not the medicinal/Band-Aid kind). High enough to put my wife completely off, but low enough that I got a bit of the goodness that lay submerged 'neath the taint. I've liked Roagna wines in the past - a recent bottle of the '07 Rosso was clean and tasty, and likewise a number of '11 Dolcettos recently drunk. I respect their uber traditional approach, but I'll be approaching my remaining stash with trepidation.

4/3/14: another Bretty bottle, worse than the last.

7/30/14: this is the 5th of 6 btls, and we finally have a winner! Clean (Brett-free), very savory, notes of bright cherry and florals, a touch of bitter herb, and those wonderful raw meat and earth notes that mark Roagna wines generally. As with many young nebbiolo, better on the second day (or, of course, after many more years). If I had to attach a number, I'd give it a solid 88.

3/10/2014 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Corked

1/2/2014 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

So, the New Year's Blizzard hits Boston tonight, and I'm drinking . . . a fino de Jerez? A weird urge maybe, but certainly glad the mood hit me as this was a compelling, delicious sherry. There's little I can add to the wonderful notes below except perhaps to emphasize the delicacy and elegance that somehow coexists with the rounder, more emphatic fruit definition that seems to define this wine against its coastal counterparts from El Puerto and Sanlúcar de Barrameda. A great start to what I hope is a continuing series of releases by Lustau.

12/13/2013 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Made from purchased fruit, but a quite refined wine, precisely structured, with an exquisitely seductive perfume. I really adored this wine's bouquet, its beguiling spicy stemmy notes and floral lift drawing my nose back to the glass again and again. A bit closed on the palate, the red and black fruit secondary to the front end spice and the long, gorgeous wash of minerals and fine grained tannins on the finish.

12/13/2013 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Initially a bit of musty funk that blew off with 5 or so minutes in the glass, leaving a wonderfully warm and inviting wine. Deep red in the glass with only hints of browning and showing warm dark red fruits and spice over velvety tannins with a developed autumnal quality. So satisfying on a wintery night at the local Peking Duck spot.

12/13/2013 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

A wonderful bottle, very fresh, vibrant, intense, and just begging to be guzzled. It followed an old Clos de la Barre and a young Dujac Gevrey-Chambertin and back-heeled them both in terms of complexity, distinctiveness, and pure joyous drinkability. One could tick off a litany of descriptors - honeysuckle, orange peel, potpourri, marzipan, toasted coconut, a deep chalky salinity - but attempting to describe this wine by its integral components cannot begin to express its harmonious whole, its ageless and ineffable perfection. A singular experience.

11/24/2013 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Corked

10/30/2013 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

A reticent nose of faint dark fruit, florals, and pine that's more pronounced on the palate. The ripeness of the fruit has begun to fade and the stemmy notes are more to the fore creating an intense inner perfume of pine needles and peppery spice. Silky on the palate, but with a meaty intensity reinforced by unresolved tannin and a good bit of extract on the finish. Very structured for a semi-carbonic bojo, and still needing a longer decant than I was able to give it tonight. There is more complexity here now, even though the overall expression of the wine is more restrained than in its more flamboyant youth. It's been about a year since my last bottle, and it seems this wine has just begun to turn the corner into a more mature profile.

10/20/2013 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Gorgeous, pure, delicious. All is in balance here: the sugars and the acids; the honeyed orchard fruit and the smokey, wooly lining; the energy of the dancing lattice-like texture and the deep linearity of the structure. A wine of crystalline purity and ethereal grace.

10/11/2013 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Another 375. This wine has really begun to strut. Medium+ body/intensity. Rich orchard fruits with a brown sugared edge, preserved lemon, brown spice notes, hints of rye, carroway. Somewhat lactic, but well structured with that wonderful '08 acid backbone. Excellent energy and length on a deep, delicious, mouth-smacking finish.

10/13/2013 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Purchased from a private cellar, and otherwise untouched since release. Gorgeous color, very vibrant and dark with little apparent signs of maturity. Ripe, fleshy, and generous on the palate, the sweetness and heft of fruit at the forefront. Some secondary characteristics, but mostly round, ripe fruit. Not tired though a little soft, probably has some evolution left.

10/12/2013 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

We popped this expecting it to be somewhat shut-down (having only tasted 05 Bourgognes, and none recently). The nose was shy, giving only that darkly mineraled/faint spice/bare whiff of fruit that suggests "too soon". Ok, so this will be one of those cerebral experiments where we struggle in vain to project the evolution of the wine. But wait, what's this?! Put that notebook away 'cause we've got a really generous wine here, opulent even, with raucous layers of ripe fruit that thoroughly saturate the tannins. Why, it practically begs to be guzzled! The only "too soon" regret might be the dense, unresolved finish with a surprising amount of darkly mineraled extract for such suppleness and poise elsewhere.

But still . . . fun! Gulpable! Montille?

The Montille website describes their Mitans like so: "This is the expression of pleasure. It is probably the most sensual, even erotic wine of the Domaine." Wow, who knew?

10/11/2013 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Popped what I thought was the first of six bottles of the 2008 Otin Fiorin. It turned out to be a 2007, and it is certainly of its vintage. Opulent and sexy on the nose, in the mouth a ripe, glycerol, fruity soup like so many other '07s. Showing its breeding, but lacking the energy, complexity, and taut power this wine can show.

10/4/2013 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Very dry and developed, tart pale red fruit, and a light oxidative streak balanced by refreshing acidity and a savory, mineral-inflected salinity. A zesty, long finish evokes dried fruit and flowers, delicate spice notes, and the slightly astringent tannins of old American oak. A very good match with Peking duck.

10/2/2013 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Last bottle and a wonderful showing. Very deep and complex with mature notes of melon, dry white florals, and saline, but with more energy, freshness and vibrancy than the prior bottle (which was likely a storage issue on my part rather than bottle variation).

3/20/2013 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

I somehow failed to record this TN. The wine initially seemed lightly corked (reduced perhaps?) and remained quite restrained on the nose and palate over the course of the night. At this stage, it was rather brooding showing pepper and black fruit on a tightly woven, largely impenetrable core of vinousness that showed the potential for somewhat lusher dark fruit and warmer spice notes. A notably long, though drying finish revealed mostly structure in the form of a hashy band of acid and slightly raspy tannin.

9/27/2013 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Drank over two nights. Very tight and unyielding on night one, and revealing itself only a bit on night two. Nose of smoke, pepper, black-fruit, and pine needles. Dark and brooding on the palate, unclenching on night two just enough to show tart black fruit, pepper, iron, and beef jus. Finish is a bit clipped with astringent tannins, and loads of dry extract. Like the 2009 Coudert Cuvee Tardive, this wine is still much too young, and I regret opening this bottle. Gilman's ambitious drinking window may well prove correct (2015-2050).

9/21/2013 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Lovely nose and palate of white florals, green orchard fruit, slate minerality, and smoke. Tense and lively on the palate, totally dry, and just beginning to develop some mature notes. Very precise and seamless, seeming more cool vintage than many 06s.

9/14/2013 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Ripe, sweet, candied, red fruit that's delicately layered with a creamy edge. Cola, spice, and a touch of earthiness emerge on the midpalate along with a nice wash of fine grained tannins coating the finish. Neither too heavy nor hi-octane, but nonetheless really showing alot of ripeness in the fruit profile. Otherwise well balanced with nicely integrated oak, and some underlying complexity, but ultimately too sweety-frooty for my tastes.

9/13/2013 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

Rich, generous, gorgeous purple fruit with a streak of herb and anise on a midweight frame showing impeccable balance. The mouthfeel is polished, a touch glossy - refined even - with a slight tannic tug asserting itself on the finish. The producer profile shines through. Delicious.

9/4/2013 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:

A bit brooding on the palate at the pop though the nose was immediately rocking. The palate fleshed out after about an hour in the decanter, and became considerably more supple with pepper, purple flowers, blackberries, and an intense, refreshing acidity that was neither sour nor bitter and buffered with ripe, melting tannin. Though the flavors are dark and opulent with notable midpalate intensity, it's neither heavy nor ponderous. And by the second glass, an absolute joy to drink.