mjwstickings

Member #332,595 signed up 3/25/2014

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  1. paulst

    paulst

    7,205 Tasting Notes

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    Jzizzle

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    Callum's Corkers

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Member since March 2014

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  • 2012 Wynns Coonawarra Estate Cabernet Shiraz Merlot

    My second bottle of this wine, tasted in early 2023. Certainly past its peak but still holding up remarkably well at over a decade old. It's noticeably softer than the first bottle I tasted back in 2016, with the fruit moving into the dried end of the spectrum and the minerality somewhat more muted, but while it may have lost a point my review from then still mostly applies:

    This may be an odd way to put it, but this amazing CSM blend smells and tastes like blood -- and I mean that in the best possible way. It's as if Wynns, a great producer, has somehow tapped into the veins running deep beneath Coonawarra, pulling up the essence of the earth into its grapes. And it's like blood because of all the iron, a strong, absorbing metallic note that I usually identify with southern Italian reds. Here, it defines the wine but does not overwhelm it. It is, in this way, the primary vein that runs through what is otherwise an enormously complex wine, with softer Merlot notes of raspberry, plum, cherry, and chocolate coming first but then complemented by Cab cassis and Shiraz/Syrah black pepper and meat, with additional earthy notes connected back to the iron, the combination continuing to evolve, and deepen, with time in the open. All three varietals shine brightly, and there is certainly the tannic structure and (cran-cherry) acidity for further aging to bring the various elements into even greater harmony. With such glorious aromatics, flavour complexity, and texture, I like this even more than Wynns's Black Label Cab, of which I recently tasted the 2013. The Cab was still somewhat closed, and may ultimately have more upside, but the CSM is simply fantastic as an expression of this trinity of well-known but not often blended grapes and of the land from which they come. And that iron, the blood of the earth, is simply extraordinary.

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  • NV Cocchi Vermouth di Torino Storico

    My second bottle of this great vermouth (not sure about the tasting/opening date, but likely late 2022 to early 2023), and I'll just repeat what I said before: This is a remarkable beverage, a vermouth that is deep and rich and best drunk neat with a chill (if not cold). It's strongly medicinal, to be sure, with quite a bit of bitterness building on the palate through the long finish, but the bitterness is fruity, like grapefruit and orange pith, and that bitter fruit goes well with the other, sweeter notes of apricot, caramel, honey, and licorice, all with a deep amber color and a silky texture just short of, say, Pedro Ximenez sherry. The bitterness is necessary, actually, lest the rest become cloying, and it all stays well in check, mostly, even if the bitterness is, in the end, a bit too strong.

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  • 2019 El Enemigo Chardonnay

    From Mendoza, this is a Chardonnay that surprised me quite a bit. Maybe it was the silly super-heavy bottle, or maybe just an initial expectation of over-ripeness and over-extraction, but it's actually a nicely lean and complex expression, a wine with a pronounced sense of being alive, very much within the idiom of higher-altitude Argentinean whites. It needs some time still to open up, and it's quite reserved in the fruity sense at the outset, but the initial savoury notes of nuts, minerals, and white pepper are joined ultimately by a wonderful array of fruit, such as lemon, peach, yellow plum, mango, apple, and pineapple, yet that fruit never overwhelms the savoury elements. It comes to remind me of a mix of great Chilean Chardonnay and a Campania white like Greco di Tufo, the aromas and flavours balanced, just like the sweetness and acidity on the palate, all leading to a dry, prolonged finish bathed in honey. I suspect it could use 2-3 more years for better integration overall, but it's still remarkably good even just a few years in. 90-91.

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