DAY 1: Massive stench of body odor, athlete’s foot fungus, jock itch, wet dog, and 5-day old venison road kill [in the summer heat] - you could summon the turkey buzzards to your back patio simply by opening a bottle of this wine and leaving it out on the picnic table. But beneath the funk, you can tell that there’s a ton of potential.
DAY 3: The animale thing is gone, and now it’s just sweet succulent fruit & bright cheerful acidity & grip all over the palate - no sense of grain or granularity or individuality to the tannins - just a ubiquitous grip.
DAY 5: Oh my Goodness. Now it’s all citrus - orange blossoms on the nose & orange rind on the palate - maybe even a little saffron. Can you make marmalade out of Pinotage?
DAY 7: Still very tasty, but be forewarned that there’s substantial sediment in the final pour from the bottle.
On an AFWE grading scale, it’s a strong 95-100pts, and a back-up-the-truck price for an AFWE summer table wine.
On the other hand, I’m not sure how you’d serve it to civilians, especially if you don’t have fully five days to prep a bottle.
Certainly you would want to decant the heck out of the wine.
But you might also consider pouring it chilled, as an exceptionally elegant orange-brown Rose.
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If you have the patience to properly aerate your wines, and if you enjoy Orange Rind in your AFWE reds, then that’s a BACK-UP-THE-TRUCK price right there.
Hmm, skip the body odor and jock itch - Alfert is not into human body odor - and he might actually enjoy this wine! I laughed when I saw the roadkill reference, not only for my personal experience in deerslaying, but that I also used that reference on a bottle of Domaine Barral. Five-day old roadkill on hot tarmac.
Light bricking around the edges, heady nose of citrus & spice box [maybe just the slightest touch of funk], excellent acidity, a broad full grip on the palate, with a sharp bitter edge on the finish [redolent of citrus rind].
Turned out to be an excellent accompaniment to ribeye boiled in butter with steamed asparagus [it was an impromptu meal - inclement weather and whatnot - so I just took the ribeye butter and dripped it on the asparagus to serve as an improvised makeshift asparagus sauce].
This wine is what you want to be pouring with your problem vegetables - asparagus, broccoli, brussels sprouts, spinach and the like.
With the acidic backbone & the screw cap, it might still have another couple of decades ahead of it.
For now, I’d guess that it’s probably best served at cellar temperature.
And I’d love to throw it in as a ringer against the best the Hautes-Côtes de Nuits could bring to the table [at ten times the price].
A strong AFWE 91 to 93 pts, and if you factor in value, then an AFWE QPR of about 95-97 pts.
Big Lumber Helicopters can fly right on over this one - it won’t even show up on their radar.
