TNs -- Weekend at Berto's, Spring 2019: Day 2

Hi All,

Our extravaganza at Humberto Dorta’s continued for its second day on a slightly more subdued level as we chillaxed while preparing to see Humberto and Eden and the rest of the cast in “Shrek: The Musical” at the historical Meadville Theater later in the evening. Late sleeping, note posting, sports talk, boardgame playing and of course drinking occupied our time during the day.

ZIND HUMBRECHT 2002 RIESLING ALSACE GRAND CRU BRAND – Rich lemon-lime flavors but also had a very strong phenolic bitterness at the start. The guys were initially worried that it was VA or yeast but it eventually receded as the fruit got stronger. Great stuff.

DANIEL ET JULIEN BARRAUD POUILLY-FUISSE EN BULAND VIEILLES VIGNES – The only white Burgundy of the weekend to lack sulfur on the nose which let some nice green apple aromas shine. Baked green apples, quite creamy, a little bit of dragonfruit in there and some phenolic bitterness. Pretty nice but like every white Burg this weekend, I felt it was below the level of Chablis 1er Cru or Meursault.

TENUTE DEL CERRO LA PODERINA POGGIO ABATE 2010 BRUNELLO DI MONTALCINO RISERVA – Decanted for a good part of the day. Rich smoked cherry wood on the nose. Tastes of dark black cherry, smoke, tannin and a slight touch of anise. Wonderful red.

LOPEZ DE HEREDIA RIOJA RESERVA VINA TONDONIA 2005 – Ah, once again Mike feels compelled to tackle the Terminator of Spanish Rioja once again even though he knows it will defeat him. Again. An all day decanting barely subdues this beast which is redolent with huge dried black and red fruits, black pepper spice, licorice and tobacco flavors. Great as always but make sure to decant unless you have a steel trap stomach. Great with food.

GERNOT GYSLER 1990 HUXELREBE TROCKENBEERENAUSLESE – My one and only pick of the entire weekend, this is almost black in color in the glass which really worried Humberto but twas for naught, the wine was good. An unusual saltine cracker nose leads to honeyed tamarind flavors which Humberto identified along with some lemon and lime. This actually reminded us all of the Tokaji Essencia we had last visit and Humberto even said that had the wine just a touch more acidity, it would’ve matched or even beaten that greatness. Very impressive showing considering were were quite worried on first glance.

After this extravaganza, we went out to a local family owned Italian restaurant to dine out before heading over to the theater. Humberto had a steak with a garlic and herb roasted vegetable medley:

Mike had some gnocchi which I forgot to snap and I had a nice Veal Marsala on top of some linguini:

After dinner we went off to see the show and the cast did themselves proud. It was a flawless production of Shrek: The Musical. We then went back to Humberto’s to chillax with some spirits to end the night:

FOURSQUARE 2006 CADENHEAD’S 11 YEAR OLD RUM – A rum from Foursquare Barbados that was distilled in 2006 and bottled at 11 years old by Cadenhead’s for their 175th Anniversary. It’s claim to fame is pureness: no added sugar, no added caramel coloring, no cask finishing, just pure distilled rum. As such, it is much drier and much more fragrant than many aged rums I’ve had. A pure brown sugar nose, clean and light molasses flavor, and a strong alcoholic bite. Honestly, this is rum done as if it were Bourbon. I personally prefer the richness of rum aged 20 years or more and certainly liked the Papa’s Pilar 24 from the night before more but I readily admit this is really intriguing and would appeal much more to rum purists.

REDBREAST 21 YEAR OLD IRISH WHISKEY – Berto generously opened this bottle for us. This fabulous aged whiskey has a bourbon caramel nose and has far more subtle but quite rich sweet barley flavors with touches of black pepper, ginger and vanilla. It’s rich but also very soft and nowhere near as heavy on the palate as equally aged Scotch. This is literally only my second Irish Whiskey and I must say as someone who has pretty much abandoned Scotch, had I known Irish Whiskey was this good I might not have closed the spirits collection or even touched Scotch at all if I’d ever had this first. As Mike put it, Irish Whiskey is the bridge between Bourbon and Scotch Whisky. There’s some available here in Toronto and I am seriously considering trading in a number of bottles to get a hold of this. Expensive but worth every penny. Incredible stuff.

DUKE SPIRITS THE DUKE 24 YEAR OLD SPECIAL RESERVE BRANDY – So the legendary John Wayne’s son Ethan has a spirit company that produces Kentucky Bourbon but they released this special product to market. Somehow it came up during conversation between Mike and Berto and they got excited and decided to try it. Honestly, all three of us were scoffing and skeptical, thinking that the son was being exploitative of the father’s name and scamming people into buying an inferior product based on a reputable name. Kind of like Connor MacGregor’s Irish Whiskey which is pure shite.

Well Berto brings out the box. And as you can see, it’s quite beautiful and crafted with care to be a collector’s box. Sure it’s branding but it doesn’t look or feel exploitative at all. I’d go so far as to say that it looked rather classy to me:

So Berto opens the box. And it’s really nice packaging designed to protect the bottle well and the case door has a rather heartfelt and sincerely written letter explaining how Duke Spirits came to be. At this point, we’re still skeptical but I have to admit I’m somewhat touched and the needle starts to move for me. And to our surprise, we now realize that this is a BRANDY and not a Bourbon. We all had just assumed it was a Bourbon partly because that’s what the company is best known for and also because of the image we all associate with John Wayne. We just assumed he’d be a Bourbon and Scotch kind of guy. I was honestly a bit shocked that he was a brandy kind of person:

And then we taste. Bear in mind that brandy is to me what Scotch is to Mike: the Nirvana. It was my first spirit and remains my first true love in the spirit world so if you give me crap, I’m more than ready to call it out. And I was ready to call this out if it was an exploitative fraud. It wasn’t. This was great. Incredibly fragrant and mellow brandy with virtually no alcoholic bite or turpentine notes, extremely clean on the palate, a touch of fruit sweetness, mild vanilla and oak flavors on the back end that dial themselves back down just as they are about to push up into wood milkshake territory. Easily the equivalent of any 20 year old Cognac or Armagnac. Maybe even better. Certainly the best American brandy I have ever had in my life. An amazing accomplishment. If only you guys could’ve seen our faces as went from mocking skeptics who were worried that Berto and his credit card got burnt bad to respectful converts. Well done and congratulations to the Duke Spirits team.

Now there’s a catch you should all be aware of before you all rush out to buy it. There were only two barrels ever made of this stuff and it retails for a whopping $600-900 US depending on where you find it. Truly it’s achievement in brandy. But is it $600 worthy? You could easily find Cognac, Armagnac and Spanish brandy of equivalent age, taste and quality or even higher for far less. I couldn’t justify it myself but if you’ve got deep pockets and are interested in this collector’s item I wouldn’t talk you out of it.

And so our visit with Humberto drew to a close far too soon as always. Thanks for the hospitality and the sharing, brother. Look forward to doing it again some time in the fall and you have to come up to Toronto this summer to visit us.

Thanks for the attempt at notes, Tran Now let me tell about what really happened.

With our good friend, Nick Christie, we sampled these few things on our full day Saturday visit. Berto and Eden had 2 shows that day, so we saw less of them than usual, but still fun. We were lucky to see the best performance the ensemble had done of Shrek in the evening.

2002 ZH Brand Ries

This was Nick’s bring, and for me it had more of a PG nose with some binned pear and riper yellow fruits mixed in. The difficulty was in the palate, where something was off. It really wasn’t VA, nor do I think it was oxed, but there was a marked bitter twinge and also a clipped finish, neither of which should be in a ZH wine. We left it for a few hours, but it didn’t really shift. Unlike Tran, neither Nick or I were that fond of this unfortunately. He has more bottles and I’m sure he’ll / we’ll check in on it to see if it was a bottle issue.

2015 Daniel et Julien Barraud Pouilly-Fuisse en Buland VV

This was one I pulled from Berto’s cellar, as I haven’t had anything from this producer before. Started out fairly austere and somewhat on the light side with nudges of grapefruit and apple and fresh water. What really surprised me was that, about 2 hours in, it completely flipped and put on excellent weight and sweeter pear and apple flavor. This surprised the heck out of me and ended up being quite nice and interesting wine.

2010 La Poderina Poggio Abate Brunello Riserva

A very funny story to this. When Tran and I were shopping at Premier in Buffalo, I saw this on the shelf, looked at the price, and decided I wanted to grab it as another chance to look at a 2010 Riserva from a producer I didn’t have in stock. We get to Berto’s and I check my part of his cellar…and there’s the same bottle, which I obviously bought at Premier 6 months ago. L-O-L. So we opened this.

As you’d expect, initially pretty ungiving on the bouquet, with some tart red fruit and, interestingly, violets, showing up. This did need a full day’s decant to fan out, but by dinnertime, it was brilliant wine, full of character, depth, fine tannins and cocoa-dusted raspberry and cherry fruit. Absolutely marvelous, and I’ve saved some off to taste again today. Probably my #2 of the weekend.

2005 Vina Tondonia Rioja Reserva

Should come as no surprise that I elected to give this the same amount of decanting as the Brunello Riserva. This has plenty of promise, with some cedary and light anise aromatics and tastes around dark, dark cherry and blackberry. It was just starting to unfurl at dinner about 9 hours later. I knew I’d opened this too soon (it was as much to make room in my “mini-cellar” which Berto has been generous enough to provide me), and at least 6 years would be all to the good here. BUT—I think it may rival or even surpass the 04 in that time.

We had also left the 11 Marcassin Marcassin Pinot and 2014 Meo Camuzet Bourgogne Clos St. Philibert covered in decanters overnight. The Meo remained pretty structured and steely, with oak in evidence—I will probably leave the rest of my stash for at least a year before trying again–and the Marcassin, the palate was a little more full today, but still not super-good and not up to snuff with the nose.

1990 Gernot-Gysler Huxelrebe TBA

Possibly the most arresting feature about this wine was its colour, which was a super-dark amber. Tran and Berto were absolutely on the money with the tamarind pickup—that is a major feature here. It is lacking acidity and intensity that would bring it to the level of the incredible 93 Pazjos Eszencia which we’ve been privileged to share, but this has some conversational ability of its own. Honeyed feel for sure, and some wildflower honey is lurking as an accent on the palate. Great to try this older TBA.

To finish our day, we stopped at friends Ron and Linda in Queenston for a visit and some final sips. They pulled a (thanks for providing details, Tran, much appreciated) 2012 13th Street Methode Traditionelle Premier Cuvee sparkling which was quite lovely and could stand very close to the 3 champagnes I had on Thursday night. I opened a 2016 Limerick Lane Zin which had the core of sweet red and black plum jam but also a fine, fine balance, a touch here and there of roasted herbs and cinnamon bark spice and a very pretty flowy feel dans la bouche. It is still on the young side and could benefit with 2 years of rest. I’m even more excited to try my Rocky Knoll, but now will probably leave for at least a year.

Haere Ra,

Mike

I’ll try to remember to post my thoughts on the whiskies and bourbons in the appropriate threads in spirits.

Oops, I forgot to post on the two bonus wines on the return trip home:

13th STREET 2012 METHODE TRADITIONNELLE PREMIER CUVEE – 13th Street has long endeavored to make sparkling wine to rival Champagne quality before the region turned on to sparkling wine as a whole. Their 06 and 06 Blanc de Noirs were spectacular. This is extremely dry and crisp, has tart green apple flavors and biscuity lees and is quite refreshing. An excellent job at a very good price.

LIMERICK LANE 2016 ZINFANDEL – This is classic Cali Zinfandel. Blackberry, black raspberry, tobacco, cocoa and grit from the tannins. Good acidity and a little wet stone accent. Nice but I think we opened it too young.

Great weekend. I only wish Id have had more time to hang out. That Bonnes Mares was definitely off. Down the drain it went. Otherwise a pretty decent of scattered wekend of wines and an amazing weekend of friendship.