There were 7 of us at Peach Farm in Chinatown on a Friday night, downing loads of food and working our way through a wide range of interesting and delicious wines.
White wines:
2002 Domaine Huet Vouvray Pétillant Réserve Brut. This sparkling Chenin presents gentle, pleasing aromas of wax, lemon peel, pear, yellow raisin, lanolin and herbs. In the mouth, it’s squinchy and slippery-textured, with subtle fizz, and a nice undercarriage of minerality supporting lemon, pear, smoke and lanolin flavors. It’s a little short on the slightly austere finish at this point, but there’s still sufficient lift and freshness to the wine. There are some rather nice qualities here, but it’s probably time to drink up.
2004 Domaine Ostertag Riesling Muenchberg Grand Cru. This seems a bit advanced in terms of its dark gold-colored appearance, but it’s still showing a dynamic range of copper kettle, peach, lemonball, kiwi, nectarine, lime and liquid caramel aromas on the nose. It’s gently sweet on the palate, with discreet flavors of caramel, apple, peach and kiwi that are pretty tasty and show good grip on the finish. It’s maybe a bit up and down, but in the end I enjoy it pretty well.
2002 Domaine Huet Vouvray Demi-Sec Le Mont. There’s a broad, expansive and rich bouquet to this wine, featuring scents of honeycomb, lemon zest, copper, wool and yellow pixie stick powder. In the mouth, it’s bold, broad and penetrating—totally alive and vibrant yet plush and caressing, too. There’s a wonderful little streak of sweetness that feels just right and only really informs the up-front personality. It finishes cool and drier, with yellow fruit and acidic citrus flavors lingering on nicely. It has fine balance, good flow, excellent tension and delicious flavors. I really enjoy it.
2013 Jolie-Laide Trousseau Gris Fanucchi-Wood Road Russian River Valley. This is pink-orange-bronze in color, featuring an elegant and subtle bouquet of floral-tinged lemon, pink grapefruit, chalkboard eraser dust, alpine flower and maraschino cherry aromas. It’s really impressive on the palate, showing nice crispness and gentle bite, fine energy and a well-mannered finishing kick. Flavors of white peach, grapefruit, strawberry and chalk are giving and finely-balanced, showing excellent control and sneaky breadth. This is a solidly-made, refreshing and tasty wine that I’m happy to recommend.
Red wines:
1998 Domaine Bruno Clair Savigny-lès-Beaune 1er Cru La Dominode. This has a slightly rustic but very appealing bouquet that delivers aromas of horsehide, dried mud, funky sweat, sweet black raspberry, fecund earth, mushroom, carob and toasted brown spices that I really enjoy. In the mouth, it features gentle tang to go with flavors of cranberry, sour cherry and dark earth. There’s a nice smooth underbelly, some grippy tannins late, and a tart, zesty finish to it. It’s light to medium-weighted, but with nice stuffing and very fine old-fashioned flavors. It didn’t generate much discussion around the table, but I thought it was excellent overall and paired quite nicely with the food.
2010 Jacques Puffeney Trousseau Arbois Les Berangères. This pale-colored wine shows off a very nice bouquet of pressed red flowers, red licorice rope, dried cherries, leather and wild herbs. It’s darker and earthier in tone in the mouth, with a cool stony personality to the cranberry, black cherry and clean earth flavors. There’s taut, tense acidity to go along with fine airy top notes, contained body and an ever-present cool granite grounding that all work together perfectly to deliver a very nice drinking experience.
2012 Domaine du Pelican Arbois Trois Cépages. This is a bit sweeter, sexier and more floral in tone—showing off pretty aromas of raspberries, strawberry licorice, tanned leather, browned tobacco, spices, purple flowers and caked dirt. In the mouth, it’s young and coiled, but increasingly expressive as the night unfolds. It’s lean and serious, but concentrated and giving with dark berry fruit, earth and stone flavors. It’s pleasingly middle-weighted and able to deliver a fine finishing kick. This is really nice, and shows a lot of promise for further development, as well.
1998 Château de Saint-Cosme Gigondas Valbelle. This is a bit dusty and musty on the nose, but slowly comes around to provide nice Old World aromas of white pepper, tobacco, jalapeno pepper, smoked cherry and lava field. It’s relatively sweet and plush on the palate, with olive, black cherry and dark cranberry flavors that are a bit tacky-textured and subtly tannic in nature, but gutsy and giving. It’s not the most refined wine, but I like it better than some at the table, though in the end I’d have to say it’s probably time to drink up.
2011 Domaine Gramenon Vin de France Ceps Centenaires La Mémé. This is a bit wild and funky on the nose, with offbeat aromas of wild rhubarb, cherry, sweet raspberry and garrigue swirling around. In the mouth, it really pops open with all kinds of crazy and wild flavors, with descriptors like sweet raspberry, cherry tang and funk barely doing justice to the experience. It’s a lot of fun to drink, really open and upbeat, with many unique twists that make it worth your while to give it a try.
2001 Marcel Juge Cornas Cuvée SC. This wine, on the other hand, is the epitome of dark and serious. It smolders on the nose with mysterious, funky, manly, earthy and intense aromas of charcoal, stone, smoke, blackberry, black cherry, tar, scorched earth, tomato vine and toasted spices that show incredible depth and a good deal of gravitas. It’s similar in the mouth, full of iron, blood, blackberry, smoked meat and hung game flavors, but with a really refined texture, solid but unobtrusive structure, and fine-grained tannins. It’s cool and poised, solidly-built, muscularly-flavored and in no hurry whatsoever. It’s impressive as hell, but I’d rather drink it 5+ years down the road.
Sweet wines:
1998 Joh. Jos. Prüm Riesling Wehlener Sonnenuhr Auslese Mosel Saar Ruwer. CORKED.
1999 Dönnhoff Riesling Oberhäuser Brücke Auslese Goldkapsel Nahe. I find a lot of pleasure in the nose of this wine, which puts forth rich aromas of mango, peach, kiwi, rock sugar, slate and hints of purple fruits. In the mouth, it’s thicker and heavier than is perhaps ideal, but I very much enjoy the expansive and creamy flavors of pear, peach, caramel, tropical fruits and slate. It’s a bit sticky on the finish, but I really enjoy the wine as a whole despite the complaints from others that it may be bordering on too flabby/creamy for their liking.
2001 Erben von Beulwitz Riesling Kaseler Nies’chen Auslese **** Mosel Saar Ruwer. Here one finds a lot of classic Mosel funk, kerosene, blue slate, peach and lime aromas that are gently sweet but nicely chiseled, controlled and refined. In the mouth, it’s zesty and driven, with measured but pleasantly sweet peach, nectarine, lime, slate and hard candy flavors. It’s not overly-plump and has a nice taut texture.
1997 Domaine Weinbach Gewurztraminer Sélection de Grains Nobles. This wine delivers fun aromas of litchi, kiwi, lime, rosewater, burnished caramel and brown spices galore. It’s powerful and direct in the mouth, with crisp edges defining the core flavors of litchi, quince and toasted spices. It’s oily and rich, but features very nice cut and drive. I find it rather enjoyable.
-Michael