4/21/2024 - Rollerball wrote:

Wild raspberry and herbs with plenty of fully integrated, perfectly ripe fruit remaining. The texture is spot on at this point. What a treat. Drink now.

4/17/2024 - Rollerball wrote:

The definition of clarity in a wine. Vibrant but not bold, whatever this is does not hide. Nor is its truth veiled or obscured.

Fresh and still beautifully, easily, slow. Quietly naked and wild, this smiles with playful eyes.

4/4/2024 - Rollerball wrote:

I finally found a way to sufficiently aerate Envinate. See photo!

After 5 hours like this we melted the astringent, rubbery reduction, leaving a boundary of stone under which lived a pulsating core of crystalline red fruit.

4/4/2024 - Rollerball wrote:

As wonderful as 7/4/18 bottle and similar impressions. Enjoyed slowly with different friends over four nights; best on fourth night. This has years ahead of it. -2034

4/3/2024 - Rollerball wrote:

At a wonderful point in its evolution, this offers cavernous freshness with elegant, deep fruit and minerality and ultimately a juicy, inspiring balance of gravity and play. You can feel the hands in the vineyard and the heart in production. Try a bottle now with a brief decant, or any time over the next five years -2028.

3/16/2024 - Rollerball wrote:

This took four full hours in the decanter to unpack its surprising depth and density of fruit. Based on my too-short aerations previously, I mistakenly thought this was drying out; but based on this bottle at least, it is not!

The bouquet became deep and attractive; a little sweet, with damp forrest floor dried flowers. The palate was softer and far more plump than previous bottles--again crediting the long aeration--with deep cherry, a hint of rosewater, and maturing notes of mushrooms. The remaining tannins were plush and the wine came off as forward and balanced; fresher and longer than expeted. Drink -2025 and give it hours of air.

2/26/2024 - Rollerball wrote:

Gained beauty, breadth, and nuance with an hour in the dedanter. Super on its own and especially with tapas and pintxos. -2026.

1/13/2024 - Rollerball wrote:

Fresh and very Cornelissen with pure, distinctive red and blue berry fruit, dark cherry, and forward-leaning clove, cinamon, and anise, along with smokey meats and black pepper.

1/13/2024 - Rollerball wrote:

First of two bottles opened was deteriorating and sweet-smelling; unpleasant, sweet, muted decomposing taste.

Mission Wine & Spirits refused to give store credit.

1/1/2024 - Rollerball wrote:

Splash decant. Classic left bank with a ton of tannin (esp after sipping some aged burgundy). Would have liked more resolution. Enjoyable if relatively straightforward. Nice touch of mint. Masculine and probably best to decant for hours and drink in the medium term - 2027.

1/1/2024 - Rollerball wrote:

Jadot Clos St Jacques Vertical: '90 '02 '08 (Rosebowl @ Ben & Kendra's): Pnp over 4 hours. The 2008 is a treat for its medium weight, crunch, and grip but as compared to the others today, it offers more green notes and is more notably tannic. Savory and tangy with notes of earth, flowers, and roast meats. Nice oomph without being overbearing. A little wild. Paired well with a range of foods including melty iberico. This could use some smoothing out but unclear whether it's got the fruit to get there. Try 2026-2028.

1/1/2024 - Rollerball wrote:

Jadot Clos St Jacques Vertical: '90 '02 '08 (Rosebowl @ Ben & Kendra's): Pnp over 4 hours. The 2002 is in a heavenly place right now: silky with a delightful harmony of fruit and all sorts of range. Integrated but still fresh with red fruit and spice; still lovely thrust. Ripe, fruit-cushioned acidity. Oscillates between the fruit (red, blue, and black) and other notes like cured meat, soft peppermint, cherry bark, and leather. Flowers. Earth like the '90 and '08 but here less of it and more freshly tilled. Far more on the fruit end of the spectrum than the 1990 or the 2008 but less power than either. Enjoyable evolution -2030.

1/1/2024 - Rollerball wrote:

Jadot Clos St Jacques Vertical: '90 '02 '08 (Rosebowl @ Ben & Kendra's): Pnp over 4 hours. The 1990. A moving experience. several particular sips took my breath away; maybe it's just new year's day. A range of beautiful spice and dirt on the nose with distant cherries and the singe of grilled steak. Incredible palate. Intensity, iron, cherries. Very savory. Wonderful texture. Wood tannins are smoothed and integrated with supple fruit tannins but that impacts the texture, not the flavors--still somehow both generous and delicate. A quiet peekaboo of subtle complexities like grilled corn and pineapple, blue fruits, brambleberry. Mind blowing density on medium body without weight. Long magical finish. Surprising at moments and ethereal. Best now-2028.

11/23/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

This is really coming around. Still energetic but toasty, rich, and rounded. Lovely balance, veined with spice and a medicinal streak; missing nothing. Caught up to and outpacing Dows '94.

12/21/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

Tried over 48 hours after pouring into a glas.vin decanter (where 750mL sits at largest diameter of the bowl). The last glass (at 48 hours) was best. This wine needs a ridiculous amount of oxygen to soften its abrasive notes and fully come together. Drink now with two days in the decanter or try again in 2026.

Here were the specific notes over two days of tasting:

*Upon opening* there was less reduction than in prior bottles — maybe the 2017 is coming around — and still an incredibly complex bouquet and palate. Floral and mineral with hints of high toned fruits, but otherwise very hard to pin down, incredibly long and complex and changing and challenging through its length.

*At 4 hours in the decanter*: not getting much. nose is beautifully floral but so subtle. The hard-to-access palate is balanced but again elusive.

*10 hours*: Smells like fire, violet petals, paper, wintergreen candy corn, and singed flesh. Very very mineral. The flavors on the attack are rough: it’s a lemon drop triangle of bitter tartness. A shy sweetness briefly peeks out.

*At 24 hours in the decanter*: the bouquet offers dark roast coffee and distant suggestions of lavendar and blueberry; a touch of sweetness emerges in the form of whispering mint and raw vanilla bean; then brewed soy and a touch of tropical fruit; black olive. Again very hard to pin down. The palate is fascinating but not fun–like a mild electronic fence–and it's like a whiskey in that once the shock fades the flavors reveal themselves, and here they are balanced and mouth-watering but entirely stone-like.

*33 hours*: Best palate impression yet. Those rocks are becoming cool and soft to touch; less abrasive.

*48 hours*: Still on the rise. Everything coming together. No sense of oxidization whatsoever.

11/27/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

Light enough weight but engrossing, still plenty lively and voluminous; super complex. Waxy with under-ripe stone fruits, flowers, iodine, tangerine, resin, herbs, and honey. And despite all that contrast, so easy to enjoy. Amazingly this went toe-to-toe with a dish of egg yolk and smoked eel, prepared with Jerusalem artichoke and bone marrow. Crrrazy.

11/27/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

A unforgettable pairing. First—on its own—this was memorable but not necessarily pleasurable. The flavors were integrated and no longer fruit-driven but still somehow strict with warm brick, dried fruits, fading flowers, and smokey herbs. I never would have thought to pair it with a touch of sweetness but it was magical with a sticky-glazed, rare-smoked squab breast at Belcanto.

11/13/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

Can’t go wrong pouring everyone a glass of this distinctive port after dinner. The taut apricot, balances the sweet, slightly maderized notes well. Here in Lisbon, the kids were enjoying it with cigarettes and vapes.

11/13/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

An hour was way too short to decant this before drinking but there’s still treated us to a beautiful and classic left bank profile along with some great 2009 fruit. Either wait until 2030 for a software version or decant for 6+ hours now for a more plush one.

11/13/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

Opened up after 30 minutes in the decanter and then proceeded in and out over several hours. Ultra complex bouquet was hard to place. The binomial pallet hits angular and saline, but finishes with touches of honey and marmalade. Slight oxidization. Enjoyable as a curiosity and added interest to several cheeses and dishes over dinner. Glad I got to try it, but I wouldn’t seek it out.

11/9/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

Discovered deep in a personal cave in a hamlet—Les Aberes, outside Saint Gerons, in the Pyrenees—this sweet white was holding up remarkably well. Gently energetic with hints of ginger and pineapple, it paired beautifully with pakora of local onions and chickpea flour with a spiced yogurt sauce. The last drops two nights later were just as lovely.

Note, spelling is incorrect in CellarTracker. Should read Selection d’Automme.

10/20/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

You're kidding me for $29! See!--I said to the solemn 2012 Latour Gevrey in the other glass--this knows how to have fun! Like some wine version of a carls jr commercial--plump and dripping with fresh juice, and sweet, earthy meat. I mean, grab a LOT of napkins! or just lick it off your fingers. Or your friend's!

Meanwhile day two reveals the softness that ineveitably results from good tannin-management (on the 55% cabernet side, remainder scrumptious merlot). Not destined to celebrate its 10th birthday, but neither does it seem to care.

10/20/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

TLDR: this particular bottle took SIX DAYS to shed its reduction and reveal its gorgeous strawberry core.

A fascinating test with this wine. As background, we've tasted most vintages of the Benje and have tried countless other Envinate bottlings, with mixed results. A common thread is reduction and days-long coaxings.

Here, the extreme matchbook reduction was pretty overwhelming upon opening. We actually put it aside and opened something compeletely different. Days two, three, and four were the same. On day SIX it was something different entirely! Fresh, effusive, floral, volcanic, dripping with dancing red fruits and spring blossoms. And then ... on day seven, kind of flat ... and dead. Crazy.

10/20/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

I share the consensus: very good; dense; long enough; improves with a bit of air.

But its solemn persona! Don't get me wrong ... it certainly shows up (and we all know, that's more than half the battle) ... and everyone knows he's got a lot going for him, but <heavy sigh>.

Not that he came to weep or draw some kind of attention--there's no flair for drama here--more like handsome, preppy even, and muscular. But the collar of his polo is up, and that defense is quietly self-conscious. The conversation is good (and for some, attractive, even memorable!); and the laughs are sincere. He really does put on a good face. And a real athlete can't be faulted for an ol’ college try.

9/26/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

Well this was fascinating. Seemed clearly over-the-hill when we first popped it, with lusty scents of decay. But within two hours this arose from the dead, literally losing its bricking and gaining a freshness of nose and palate, becoming a contender for wotn amongst many greats.

7/16/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

This has shed its prickly scales to become a really exciting and attractive wine. Guitar and horns. I was expecting interest, but not enjoyment after my last bottle five years ago but without those hard edges this Poulsard has become as pleasurable as it is facinating. Artisan and iconoclast; highly recommended. 2024-2030

Considered getting my hands on more of these but this ‘14 now going for $170 and I see that new vintages are $125. I can’t recommend L’Enfant Terrible at that price (I paid $49), but I can understand the pull!

7/16/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

Several hours air absolutely required to open this up. Far more serious than the ‘09 was at this age. I want to give this just another year or so and still then hit it with some air. 2025 with 2-3 hours’ aeration; enjoy through 2030.

7/16/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

Stunning. Hits the pleasure receptors and hits intellectually. Very sophisticated. A (if not THE) benchmark Etna Rosso in a benchmark vintage. The tannins and texture must be experienced to be believed. The powdery fruit offers both verve and sweet comfort. Wonderful shifting and flow of sents and flavors over several hours. 130-year old vines.

I’d say it’s a bargain at this tier of world class, unique wines. But considering that the first of the two bottles I opened today was corked, I’m not sure if that statement holds at double the price.

7/16/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

Badly corked. Very disappointing.

7/13/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

The flavors on the angular palate are not as appealing as they were on the 2017 bottling, nor are they as appealing as the the deep, sweet bouquet. But the texture is plush; these guys do a great job with tannin management year in and year out. This is an OK single-bottle purchase for the member price of $44 … but it makes no sense at the $110 list or at the $92 average price here on CT. Drink now.

7/6/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

Came from behind for the win tonight, as this gained incredible complexity and flow. Perfect medium-weight with sneaky intensity. Bright and savory with black-cherry and eucalyptus. Fresh cigar with hints of game; hints of tar. An exciting wine with upside. 2026-2050

7/6/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

A captivating bouquet leads to a medium bodied palate with slightly out of balance acidity. This delicious food wine gets plumper and creamier with a little air, thankfully softening the at-first-angular graphite, cherry, licorice, iodine, and earl grey notes. My impression may be skewed by having only given this an hour in the decanter, but I don’t see any reason to wait on these. Now-2038.

6/30/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

Significantly more evolved than the pristine bottle last November. Cork was fine but for whatever reason there’s material bottle variation in these. And also oddly this bottle did not really shine until it had spent over 7 hour in the decanter. Weird specimen but it does speak to trying one of these sooner rather than later.

6/24/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

This is beautiful right now. Warm and welcoming but sophisticated, elegant, and intriguing as well. After much argument we did in fact toss it into the decanter, from which it did in fact benefit, and the last glass was in fact best.

6/24/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

Currently at a nice spot; early maturity. Medium strength bouquet of dark fruit, cinnamon, clove, and spices, dried Persian limes, prosciuto, and of course prunes. Similar flavor pofile--and just pleasantly savory with fresh and bruised strawberry, violets, and balsamic--but without the extreme viscocity of some Amarone; somehow the 16.5 is well contained in a relatively medium body.

Drinking well already with a brief decant and would be even better with a few hours' air and a few more years of evolution. now - 2035.

6/20/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

Spectacular, still very fresh, and so very drinkable. Three hours in the decator and what a star. Recommend drinking one now if you've got it. Probably on point like this for another few years. best -2025

6/20/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

Magnum. PnP was perfect with smoked brisket sandwiches on sweet rolls with all the fixins. Everyone's wotn. Would drink 750s now. Magnums -2026 easy.

6/10/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

Food friendly and handsomely mineral from the get-go, this gets more *actually* friendly after a couple of hours in the decanter, after which some bass notes, additional depth and richness, and a sweeter dusting emerge on the palate, all without sacrificing any of the line-drive energy or crushed-rock complexity. The equally complex bouquet is at once both roomy and stuffed like some vast dryer loaded with cirrus cotton candy. Agree with these low-90s scores; this was a steal (for Burgundy) at thirty-eight bucks. now-2028.

6/5/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

Ready to drink and as good on its own as with carnitas tacos. A pleasure, especially in contrast to a [possibly-flawed] 2015 Marcel Lapierre Morgon Cuvée Marcel Lapierre. Now-2026.

6/5/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

Dirty with some sort of bacteria and secondary firmentation.

5/14/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

Bouquet: tropical, bitter, orange blossom, hibiscus. Clean black cherry luquor, mint, something grilled, something chocolate. Incredible.
Taste: Nutmeg, plum, prune, very ripe strawberry, finish is beautifully bitter; root vegetable dirt and earth. Roasted carrot.

4/16/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

Exalted and much much better than 2017 bottle. I guess 40, 45 years is plenty of time for some bottles to veer off the rails and others to achieve the level of a completely integrated beauty of the one we had here. Enjoyed with paella, this was surprisingly stuffed with just ripe red fruit, and offered all sorts of complementary citrus, dill, gentle bark, and vitality across the board.
Drinking at peak, bottles as good as this one have at least another 10 years (but again, our last bottle, six years ago, was over to hill).

3/26/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

A handsomely-orchestrated wine that is ready to drink, though it shows better on its second night. The bouquet and palate both offer a spectrum of balanced and complementary nuances, anchored on a robust base. Enjoyable stuff, and a bargain at $22.

3/26/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

Second glass better after bottle open 24 hours. Bursting with prickly fruit and notes of garden flowers and petroleum products. Authentic but crude, sustained by a finely-tuned fruit sweetness. I can’t help but wonder if this would work better as a mixer along the lines of Leopold Brothers Aperitivo, or maybe with a few more years to unwind.

3/4/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

This singular producer does it again. Water, earth, and fire -- but a sliver less air this time ... just a touch more thickness than sometimes found here. The fruit is so pure and pretty with a unique Cornelissen profile, which here presents as a butterfly structure: open fresh and earnest -- to clamped and serious -- to orchards of autumn senses. Something very calvados here. Eager try the 2020 crus.

3/4/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

Rich bouquet but angular palate, both of which feature bramble and toasted herbs. Then a lingering sense of stone and sweet, aged, papery wood, maybe some muted citrus. Then at the two-hour mark, in a rebirth of sorts, gentle fruit hatches, making this something of a sedated, aloof, post-dinner decaf. But unless you're waiting for that, this best accompanies a light lunch of pork or poultry. Drink now.
86 on opening, 88 after dinner, and completely shot 24 hours later.

Continuing to pop 2014 Burgundies, some of which have been just so delightful and drinkable. Enjoying this vintage.

3/1/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

2hr decant. There’s a sweetness and size to the fruit that may be why reviews are calling it more modern. Also I suppose the structure is as much tannic as acidic. At the same time the bouquet and palate both feature classic Nebiolo components and there’s nothing remotely heavy, extracted, or overblown here. This drank great on its own and with salty chips. Mild tertiary development but not a ton. Certainly has the tannic structure to last and plenty of fruit to ride along with it. Seems to be drinking at extended plateau. now-2026, easy.

2/27/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

Surprise! Drinking great. Soft tannins and plush fruit remain. Seemed to be bricking more upon opening than 10 minutes later, somehow. A soft density of classic Napa fruit with eucalyptus notes. Not especially long or juicy, but nicely extracted and warming on a rainy winter day.

2/24/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

Understated perfection. Utter class but still so easy to drink alone or pair. I could enjoy (but not afford) drinking this regularly.

2/24/2023 - Rollerball wrote:

The appealingly savory and evolving bouquet keeps you coming back. Good density but not bold, mostly dark fruits but not without some strawberry, cranberries, smoke, and herbs to keep things fresh. Nice balance and acid.

A beautiful instance of the underrated 2014 Burgundies, which seem to be drinking just great right now, (though based on my tiny sample, Nuits may be better than Beaune).