Zoom tasting: 3 Champagnes, R-M, Kutch, EMH, Saxum, Carlisle

We convened last night for a Zoom tasting, with wines supplied by Frank Murray and me. We’ve become very proficient in these in the last year – wines topped up into screwcapped 3.5, 4 or 5 ounce bottles (depending on the group size), distributed out in the afternoon, everyone gets on Zoom to taste together. At this point, I’m having one of these every week or two with different combinations of OC wine enthusiast friends.

On to the wines. They were all served double blind.

FLIGHT 1 - CHAMPAGNE

Larmandier-Bernier Terre de Vertus 2012. This Champagne had a front end with modest notes of toast, yeast, golden apple, caramel. The second act becomes more savory – ginger, slate, almond and hazelnut skin. This tended towards being on the rougher, more bitter side early, but it evolved positively, and it really became a nice, complex, full-spectrum Champagne. Zero dosage, though I don’t think most would have guessed it to be that, or even Extra Brut category, if just poured a glass, as it stylistically seems to fall more into the mainstream of big house Champagne.

Chartogne-Taillet Orizeaux NV (2015 base). This was a simpler, sweeter Champagne. It felt more to me like something that would be good for an afternoon picnic, or something that might appeal to civilian palates. The entry and nose feature sweet lemon hard candy, some yellow apple, fairly light body. This was 100% pinot noir, and I never would have guessed that. Only 4g of dosage, but it showed more than you would think, or maybe being surrounded by two zero-dosage wines made it stick out more?

Ruppert-Leroy La Bergerie NV (2017 base). This fell somewhere in between the first two stylistically. Bright apple fruit, juicy lemon and orange fruit, a light layer of smoke, a hint of vanilla, creamy texture, good clean citrus acids on the finish. This was probably the most overtly tasty and easy to enjoy of the three, but it did not have as much complexity, classic Champagne notes, and feeling of importance as the Larmandier. Some of that may be the difference in age too?

FLIGHT 2 - SONOMA PINOT

Rivers Marie Pinot Noir Platt Vineyard 2018. This immediately hit me with the telltale R-M nose of sweet orange cream. Though from there, it was relatively darker shaded for a R-M pinot. Black cherry, a bit of herb, black tea, some darker spices. More concentrated and powerful, but avoiding sweetness or heaviness. A very good pinot in a more masculine style. I think this would be better in a few years.

Kutch Pinot Noir McDougall Vineyard 2017. This goes to the savory side of pinot noir. The nose is mineral and rocks, tart dark cherry and cherry skin, pine forest, fresh herbs, stems. This has some chalky tannic shoulders to it and higher acids on the finish. A really good wine if you appreciate the Kutch style, as I do. Lots to contemplate in each sip. This will likely improve with age, too.

FLIGHT 3 - MIXED BIG REDS [disclaimer, I poured these and so they were not blind to me, though I had never had any of these bottles before]

EMH Black Cat Cabernet Sauvignon 2010. Beautiful purity to the purple berry fruit, a bit of pencil lead, light shades of mineral and sweet tobacco. Very pretty and feminine in style for a 100% cabernet from Napa - the wine had such a light, floaty mouthfeel that there was discussion whether this was cab franc, or maybe a cab franc blend like a Viader. This bottle was at a place when it seemed to combine the best elements of freshness and maturity. My WOTN.

Saxum Booker Vineyard 2014. I did give this two hours in a decanter before pouring into the mini bottles, but it really needed double that or more, or really, another 5-10 years in the bottle. Still, it showed a lot of fun stuff. Mineral, leather, black olives, black and dark purple berry fruit, chalky tannins, cocoa powder. Young and brawny. 15.1% but not really showing heat, just a big strapping wine. 66% syrah, 34% mourvedre.

Carlisle Zinfandel Hayne Vineyard 2013. This showed the classiness and more refined nature of Hayne Vineyard zin, which in turn made it harder for those trying it blind to identify as zin. Ripe raspberry and strawberry fruit, a hint of vanilla, a bit of fresh forest character, sweet leather, plenty of acid on the long finish. A lovely wine at a really good age.

Maybe we’ll get a few other participants to chime in with their thoughts. Thanks for reading.

I think the Chartogne is Orizeaux.

How are you getting Champagne into the bottles without losing most of it to foaming over?

Thanks for including my Black Cat 2010. You nailed its characteristics, and its overall readiness to drink. 2012 Black Cat is right behind it, as well as the 2011 (whose vintage the critics, as we know, clobbered in general).

with incredible patience… and hand muscle cramps… doable but dayam vialing off bubbly is a pain…

You just keep going from one to the next, funneling in not quite enough to foam over. It can be done, it just takes patience.

And I think it’s important to get the sizes of bottles you can fill to the top, though it depends on the champagne (and its youth) and how much you do or don’t mind the bubbles having diminished.

Yeah, as Chris mentioned it’s “undefined”. My personal observations.

1. In general, the sparklers hold up very well with a few tricks.
2. Keeping them cold is important. Warmer the wine the less CO2 they can hold. Physics, it’s the law.
3. Filling to the top helps, removing head space is good. More physics.
4. A good cap seal is really important. I provided sparklers for a tasting with Chris and my bottles suck and the wines were basically still at the time we tasted. Thankfully, they were great wines and it didn’t matter but that’s another story.

As a side note I’ll leave sparklers in the refrigerator overnight without a cork and they’ll be fizzy the next day.

Thank you Chris for helping to curate the wines for this week. I enjoyed it. The EMH and Kutch were my wines of the night.

BLIND TASTING VIA ZOOM–3/9 - (3/10/2021)

• 2012 Larmandier-Bernier Champagne Premier Cru Terre de Vertus - France, Champagne, Champagne Premier Cru
  This is my final 750, decided to pour it blind for our Zoom tasting group. Last night, it had a light note of caramel and brown spice (from the wood elevage?), along with golden apple, ginger and a savory/bronzy finish. Retasting today, the ginger note seems even more elevated, with the yellow apple picking up a honeyed edge and the same dried herb/savory note from yesterday. Overall, I still read this wine as being in a good drinking window, and for me, the right flavors to enjoy before it ages any further. Still have a mag left, which I will open some time this year once the damn COVID pressures can ease and we can get some people together live.
• 2013 Chartogne-Taillet Champagne Extra Brut Orizeaux - France, Champagne
  Poured this blind for our Zoom group last night. Of all three wines of the flight, this showed the most opulent, likely due to the dosage here (4 g/l versus zero on the other two wines, 2012 L-B Terre de Vertus and NV Ruppert-Leroy Bergerie). Disgorged June 2018. 100% Pinot Noir. Yesterday the wine showed flavors of mint, lemon (called lemon curd by one of the guys in our group) and minerals. Today I am retesting from the few ounces I saved overnight. The aromatics seems more leesy today. The acidity has shifted to something more lime in tone, with the same minerality of yesterday, and the emergence of some apple. This could fool me for Chardonnay.
• NV Ruppert-Leroy Champagne La Bergerie Brut Nature - France, Champagne
  Damn it is hard to find info on this wine. The R-L website doesn’t say anything about the cuvee, and aside from a short blurb from a retailer’s website, the best we can do is (thank god for) the back label. This is a mix of fruit from the 3 R-L plots: 60% Fosse, 20% Martin Fontaine and 20% Les Cognaux, split 50% Pinot noir and 50% Chard. 2017 base, disgorged October 2019. Zero dosage. I assume that this wine fails the millesime test because it saw less than 3 years on the lees? I do enjoy this producer, and a bottle of Martin Fontaine (2015 base) last year was stunning. This is the first of three La Bergerie that I acquired. Opened last night for our Zoom group, poured blind. This is mostly still today, as the CO2 has left the wine. What’s left here is a wine that has plenty of depth and intensity, both that persist well through into the finish. Lemon, some bruised apple, saline, with plenty of texture, even a bot of roundness that gives the wine a cool mouthfeel. Still plenty of grip in the finish, the saline and minerality helping it along. Apple, and even some red berry like a strawberry is finding its way into the finish, too. Really lovely.
  
  
  
• 2018 Rivers-Marie Pinot Noir Platt Vineyard - USA, California, Sonoma County, Sonoma Coast
  There are a LOT of users of this wine, yet only two previous notes, and I own one of them. Last night, I poured a bottle of this blind for our Zoom group, in part because I was pretty certain none has tasted it yet, and I wanted to see how it faired without the interference of the Gallioni score to bias what people were tasting. Of note, I saved a few ounces from last night to retaste today, to ensure I could offer the best informed note, with the wine seeing about 24 hours of air, too. In thinking about last summer’s bottle, while this shows the same dark color, the flavors seem to be softening up a bit (and the 24 hours of air probably has helped, too). This remains built with a decadence of darker fruit, yet it’s not syrupy or overdone like some of the Pinot Noir many of us drank in the previous decade. Think darker red fruit with a mix of purple. Lots of concentration and intensity, even a bit of iron. Finishes with a juicy yet concentrated purple kind of boysen fruit, with a touch of tar and spice. This is a good wine, and I’ve argued enough about the absurdity off the 100 pt scale that I’m gonna skip that here. Instead, I would suggest to the nearly 300 users of this wine to not treat this as a museum piece and put the score aside and then decide if you want to drink the wine to experience it. A bottle not opened is a bottle not enjoyed.
• 2017 Kutch Pinot Noir McDougall Ranch - USA, California, Sonoma County, Sonoma Coast
  Opened last night for Zoom tasting, poured blind. I also chose to pair this against the 2018 Rivers Marie Platt to create contrast. The group was split between preferring the two wines. For me, I preferred the Kutch. For context, this was opened yesterday and I saved a few ounces for retasting today. What continues to stand out for me about the character of this wine is the aromatics. The whole cluster provides a perfumed note that lifts out of the glass, very floral. There is a red cherry, cranberry and red apple note, pure in tone, sitting within a medium weight palate. And even with the 24 hours of air, the structure persists, in part driven by the savory/herbal note of the stems and also a perceived mineral/tannin that gives the wine a beautiful structure. Whereas the Rivers-Marie Platt is clearly California in tone, I bet this wine could fool some palates as to origin, perhaps guessed as Burgundy. The weight, flavors and composition are all here. Finishes with a brushing of blue fruit and mineral. It’s hard for me to pick whether I like Kutch Falstaff or Kutch McDougall more but in 2017, both plots really kick ass and Jamie has crafted two gorgeous wines that continue to drink well and show a long road of enjoyment ahead.
  
  
  
• 2010 EMH Cabernet Sauvignon Black Cat - USA, California, Napa Valley
  Poured blind as part of our Zoom tasting night. Damn, the aromatics on this are gorgeous. It’s been open 24 hrs and I have been able now to taste it twice. Just a bit of cedar and cigar leaf here, along with red fruits, creating something I just want to smell but then realize I should drink it, too! Good concentration and really no fade on the fruit at all that I can sense after a decade. Cedar, cassis, a bright tingle of acidity that has hung around well after a decade. In total, this wine remains fresh, flavorful, and most of all, flat out delicious. Probably one of the best Cabs I have had in my glass in quite some time, and seemingly cut from the old cloth of red fruit and acidity versus the tiring cloth of dark fruit and new oak. Given the freshness and pleasure that this wine delivers, my own personal preference would be to drink this wine now, although it might continue to acquire the aged qualities that some like (more than I do). This is in a really good place now. Excellent.
• 2014 Saxum Syrah Booker Vineyard - USA, California, Central Coast, Paso Robles Willow Creek District
  Poured blind as part of our Zoom tasting yesterday. I have now tasted the wine twice, with 24 hours of air separating each. Last night, this had a crushed clove nose with some heat. The wine tasted dense, compact, tight. I decided to save a few ounces to retaste today, which is the note that follows. As I have become older (now 55), I simply have a harder time processing through wines of this heft. When I was 35, it was easier and I drank a lot of them, including Justin’s wines, which I have great memories surrounding. Yet, I’ve grown more attracted to higher acid, lower ABV, medium weight wines, and I say this to ensure there is context for my comments. The air overnight really softened this up so a decant would be very helpful if you’re going to open one, or better perhaps a decant and then slow ox several hours ahead of drinking. This is a plush, dark wine with dark berry, creosote, graham cracker, tar, licorice and dark chocolate. Purplish/black fruit are the core, with a decadent, plush quality. At 24 hours, this is very drinkable but the alcohol would break me if I had more than a few glasses.
• 2013 Carlisle Zinfandel Hayne Vineyard - USA, California, Napa Valley
  Poured blind as part of our Zoom tasting. As with blind tasting, it’s work and humbling, and I had guessed Syrah on this wine last night. It just had some sweet leather notes with some tar coming through the aroma. And the palate showed the same sweet leather, with apricot, blue fruit and tangy raspberry so I stayed on Syrah. Wrong. So goes blind tasting. I was able to save a few ounces to retaste today so the wine has had a good full fay of air. Maybe what the aromatics suggest is some accelerated aging? I say that because the color is just starting to show some brown on the edges, which suggests to me age is at work. Today, this seems more driven towards a hard cherry candy, with cinnamon, tar and blood orange. Given those flavors, and the more plush and juicy texture, I can see the Zinfandel guess would have been better last night, as it tastes like Zin today. This seems like a wine that is ready to go and given the way this goes across the palate and the easier nature of the wine, I am not sure more age is going to make this better.

Posted from CellarTracker

Nicely done, Chris! Thank you for the notes. We have one 2010 EMH Black Cat left and will tee it up soon. And good to see your notes, Frank!

Ed

Very nice. Looking forward to doing a live time tasting with you guys hopefully soon.

Last year we quasi-blinded this wine side by side with the 2018 Rivers-Marie Old Vine Summa. We didn’t know which glass had which wine. They were both very good but I preferred the OVS so I’m giving it 102 points.

Curious when you think the 18’ Platt should be opened. I tucked my 18s away at my offsite locker hoping to get them to 4-5 years old before I start bringing them home to drink.

Jeff, ‘should’ is a hard one to answer. I’ll consistently drink my wines young, and often over 2-3 nights. This enables me to track wine over a few settings, with the benefit of air. That said, I see no problem with drinking the Platt now, and the added air it saw would be smart if you open a bottle.

My two cents worth is that it would be better in 2-4 years. It has a lot of interesting components which I think will marry together better with some age.

But that mostly reflects just how Frank and I drink pinots – he tends to prefer them younger than I do.

Flight 1:

1. 2012 Larmandier-Bernier Champagne Premier Cru Terre de Vertus: the wine had a yellow fruit with a soybean/milky note and a creamy texture. Agree with Chris with the almond/hazelnut finish. The most complexity of the three, but not as overtly tasty like #3.
2. 2013 Chartogne-Taillet Champagne Extra Brut Orizeaux: I felt like this one was the outlier of the trio so I guessed this one as the full PN. It had more mineral and saline notes to me. I was surprised this was the one that had 4g dosage (compared to the others at zero, I had guessed 3 as having low dosage).
3. NV Ruppert-Leroy Champagne La Bergerie Brut Nature: my favorite of the trio, had more upfront fruit (apples and “beams” of lemon) and zippy acid. The persistence after the last sip was long. I was surprised that this was a mix of PN and chard (I thought full chard).

Flight 2:
61) 2018 Rivers-Marie Pinot Noir Platt Vineyard: This wine tasted like a high quality domestic PN and matches Sonoma Coast PN to me. Sitting on the spectrum of darker red fruit with acidity to balance. I really enjoyed the texture and finish. With time some of the other notes of spice come out. Brig called black tea, which was spot on. Really enjoyable young but I think a few years to let the other notes emerge would be nice. For a reference point I’ve had the 2013 and 2014 Scherrer Platt over the past year or two and those are more savory in style. This wine is more overtly delicious.
62) 2017 Kutch Pinot Noir McDougall Ranch: from the start the nose really drew me in, fragrant rose/red florals with peppery savory nose that I associate (and really enjoy) from whole cluster. Every time I’ve had a chance to drink Kutch I’ve consistently enjoyed the wine.

Flight 3:
A) 2010 EMH Cabernet Sauvignon Black Cat: beautiful tobacco nose with clean red fruit and layers of flavor. Some round tannins but seemed tamed. Tasted like a cool climate CA cab with a bit of age. Not yet tertiary/damp leaves, just delicious. Blind I thought A+B were cabs (with A being cooler climate and B being a more modern style cab and C being an outlier) but when it was revealed that all three were different varietals I switched my guess as A) cab franc, B) as modern cab and C) as Grenache. Womp womp!
B) 2014 Saxum Syrah Booker Vineyard: dark purple and blue fruit with heft. Plush and “smooth”. I got an impression of mocha (both the flavor and texture). I saved some of this for the next day and was able to draw out more flavors. Modern style Syrah from Paso made more sense to me the next day. I made a comment on the Zoom that this was on the opposite spectrum of the Halcon Alturas that I had recently. I enjoy both, with this wine probably being something I’d enjoy a glass of on it’s own and the Halcon with food. Thanks Chris for sharing my first taste of Saxum!
C) 2013 Carlisle Zinfandel Hayne Vineyard: I got a juicy strawberry/raspberry flavor from this wine and this was an outlier in the trio. I think we’re hitting it time to enjoy the fruit, good integration (no overt oak) and resolved tannin. I had a taste of 2013 Scherrer old vine zin last year and a recent sample of Bedrock Sonoma Zin (both thanks to Curtis!) and this was in between that spectrum. I need to drink more Zin!