Great nite out at a very nice small French Bistro style place in Soho.
Started off with the 2002 Nikolaihof Riesling Vom Stein Smaragd and it was a stunner. Oily texture, intense tropical fruits, pure intense minerality and a long finish. Great finesse. Aristocratic showing for this wine. The last of my three bottles. In a great place right now. Next up was 2004 Emrich-Schonleber Monziger Fruhlingsplatzchen Grosses Gewachs which had more intense minerality than the previous wine and also seemed a bit more tightly coiled. Still this was bursting with minerality and beautiful intense citrus fruits. Very refined and silky with little daggers of minerality sticking out and gently prickling your palate. Long finish. Needs around three to five years to integrate but a beauty in the making. Then moved onto the 1990 Christoffel-Prum (pretty sure this and not Erben) Urziger Wurzgarten Auslese *** which was the wine equivalent of a butterface. Great nose with tropical fruits, spice, petrol and honey but a low acid palate with not much there. After that mild dissapointment moved onto the 1986 Tempier Bandol Cuvee Tourtine which was a revelation for me as I have never had old Tempier. It was glorious with a very leathery, sweaty nose and great depth. All that great Provencal stank was there in all of its glory. Palate was mature and silky with pure strawberry fruit and lively acidity. In a great place. Next up was the 1986 Domaine Tempier Cuvee Miguoa which was richer and bigger than the tourtine. Perhaps a bit riper and jammier but still wonderfully stanky (Provence, horse, red fruits) with uplifitng acidity. I actually think I preferred the Tourtine but that is splitting hairs based on a small stylistic difference. Then came perhaps the red wine of the night the 1988 Chateau Musar which slayed me. Nose was deep and layered. Pomerolian with intense red fruits, barnyard, mint, tea and some currants. Nose was amazing. The palate was one of the most concentrated Musars I have ever had. Perfectly delineated and ripe with gorgeous purity and length. The whole package and then some. Next up was the 1982 Emidio Pepe Montepulciano d'Abruzzo which was very good but I thought was a little off due to refermentation or bottle variation or something along those lines. I have had much better examples of the '82 and much worse examples. Great core of fruit but some spritz was there. Cannot make a definitive judgement. Lastly was the 1990 Valentini Montepulciano d'Abruzzo which needed a good solid two hours to get going but once it did I thought it was sensational. Granted it was only two sips of sensational but wow . . . .Color was an inky black and the nose offered up black fruits, iodine and woodland berries. Very concentrated and powerful with great purity and length. Wish we let this breathe longer. Great wines and company.
Thrilled to have been there amongst such great wines and great company. Also psyched my Musar won wine of the night! (What's my prize?)
ReplyDeleteThere's very little I could add to your rigorous notes except I think the night threw at us some totally unplanned, and genius/mind-freaking juxtapositions: 1) Round oily deep Austrian Smaragd next to the absolutely shrieking, taste-bud vaporizing, German GG, 2) 86 Tempier 1-2 punch was splitting hairs to proclaim one or the other victor, but damn splitting hairs was never so much fun and lastly, 3) Let's all just give it up for the madman from Abruzzo - the 82 Pepe was a bit quirky with spritz, but still had that angry, coiled-up, "I'm-so-problematic-but-you-still-love-me-thing" that I find absolutely mesmerizing. The 90 Valentini was deeper, darker and certainly the better Montepulciano, but what a pleasure to have these two brooding bottles on a warm table, on a cold night, in NYC. Let's do it again soon.