Roelanda and I were honored to share an evening with a dear friend who came back to Santa Barbara for a short visit. We dined at one of our favorite local Italian restaurants and sipped on some wines while catching up and resolving all worldly issues.
All of us had previously remarked about keeping it light on the wine intake and minimizing our consumption, but both wines showed well enough that we had just a small pour left in each bottle. Here’s some notes:
2014 DELAMOTTE LE MESNIL sur OGER BLANC de BLANC- server blind to the others; this had a light yellow color and offered pleasant aromas of ginger accented fresh citrus fruit which continued on all the way through with lemon and lime most prevalent; after 15 minutes or so, it seemed to gain body and depth along with a coat of honey and some saline and chalk notes; it was good at the start and after 20+ minutes, it all came together and provided an even more satisfying champagne experience.
This is not the full on, bigger bodied and rounder 2012 which I’ve been a fan of since first released and was hyped as containing the fruit normally used in Salon and that no Salon would be made in 2012 until they decided to do so. This was more of the elegant, graceful version, but as this one gained energy with time in the glass, it demonstrated more similarity and could mature into a closer 2nd sister in a few years.
1997 WILLIAMS SELYEM HIRSCH VINEYARD SONOMA COAST PINOT NOIR- served blind to the others; usually, i decant these wines if only for a few minutes, but in this case, i just pulled the cork and left it sitting upright for an hour; had I done so, I might have pulled another bottle as this was certainly displaying atypical characteristics; the color was a cloudy dark red purple and the nose included dried as in raisiny blueberry, plum, fig and black currant which made up most of the taste profile and being on the sweet side; it had a viscous texture and a long, sweet finish; I’ve had quite a few bottles of this release in the last few years and all have been really good and much more youthful, vibrant and featuring spicy and cinnamon accented red raspberry along with the blueberry and dark fruit; as it was, this seemingly got better and more drinkable and we came close to finishing the bottle.
Cheers,
Blake