Christmas dinner. Generally a quiet family affair with a couple of friends, this time just one. We had duck with duck fat potatoes and Brussel Sprouts with bacon, almonds and then a little more bacon.
Dom Ruinart NV Blanc de Blancs
The third time i have had this in the last couple of weeks. Nice Champagne, good attack and finish. Flavors of apple and pear, it showed extremely young. You never know with any batch of NV whether it will age or not, but this one certainly will. I bought several bottles, and plan to keep them for a couple of years.
The Gaja 1971 had serious cork problems, with the disintegrated cork sticking to the side of the bottle. It meant that even after decanting, it had a fair amount of sediment. Sill, the wine showed beautifully, extremely young, plenty of strawberry and rose hip fruit. Then over time showed tar and earth. A fair amount of acidity, and a nice finish.
I expected a lot more from the Faiveley. The nose was a soft dull vanilla, a touch of fruit. On the palate it was seamless, but very dilute. Short to medium finish. Nothing much wrong with the wine, but nothing much right either.
Strange. I have had exactly the same cork issue with multiple bottles of the 1971 Gaja normale, but not with the single-vineyard wines. And each time, while I feared the worst, the wine was fine…
I wasn’t surprised by it seeming so fresh. The cork had completely adhered to the side of the bottle, and really had to be forced in to it to allow us to get at the wine. Probably an almost perfect air-tight seal.
No, I lent mine to somebody, and still waiting to get it back. After the initial probing with a good waiter resulted in a good deal of disintegration, used an ah so, which could not get between the cork and the inside of the bottle.
just had the same cork issue with a 1989 Clerc Milon. Cork super glued to the neck, and no Durand or ah-so in sight. Ended up pushing it in and then filtering.
Dan,
Can live with unforgiving; you know the structure is there, but still needs time. What shocked me was how blah this wines was and how it did not seem typical if the house. I wonder if they bought the juice rather than the grapes.