Warmed up with a few bevies at T-Chow last night before seeing Muse in concert last night. A couple of Central Otago Rieslings with a touch of residual sugar went particularly well with a pork and scallion hot pot. The 2013 Auburn Riesling ‘Pisa’ is 11% alcohol and has 30 grams of sugar Pungent minerality envelopes the nostrils. It also has a whiff of musk and a squeeze of lime. It is bright and lively in the mouth with some restrained exoticism in the form of meaty paw paw. The finish is punctuated by a big blast of citrus and chalk. The 2013 Auburn Riesling ‘Lowburn’ is kind of a poor man’s Auslese weighing in at 9.5% alcohol and carrying 75 grams of sugar. It has quite a cool stony nose with light toasty reduction. Full and generous with an unctuous mouthfeel and great sugar/acid balance. There are pure orchard fruit flavours with a drizzle of honey. It has excellent cut to the finish and super length. The 2012 Vasse Felix Heytesbury Chardonnay has the flinty, struck match smell that many of us quite like in Chardonnay. There are bright citrus fruit aromas and flavours. I suspect it was picked early and it is just a tad green and lean in the mouth with no real mid-palate sweetness. The 2011 Daniel Rion Vosne-Romanee ‘Les Chaumes’ 1er Cru has a delightfully perfumed and expressive nose of red berries and rose petals. It is fine and lacy in the mouth with plenty of old vine sap and good detail. It finishes with a touch of floral spice and loads of minerals.
I have been looking forward to seeing Muse for some time and my expectations had been heightened by a couple of good friends touting them as the best live act in the world. With my two wingmen, Lieno and Jools in tow, we ensconced ourselves in the mosh pit and were entranced by the wall of sound and magical light display as the band launched into the first set with ‘Supremacy’. ‘Supermassive Black Hole’ and ‘Knights of Cydonia’ cranked hard and ignited the crowd. But there was a real lull in the middle of the set as radio friendly and softer songs were trotted out. Lieno yelled out to Matt Bellamy that they were just like U2 but with more bass. Jools, who is less critical than Lieno, thought they were what Queen would be now if they were still together and thought that when they get the pedal to the metal can actually lay it down. Sadly for a while the foot was just lightly feathering the accelerator whilst they were wearing pink frilly underpants. They trotted out an extra set of drums and Lieno got half excited, thinking back to when The Bad Seeds use two kits with such force and fury to drive home The Mercy Seat, ‘Follow Me’ just didn’t do it for him. Lieno has little tolerance for a lot of things and hates tossy gimmicks. I don’t know what went up faster, the smoke that fired out of the stage or his eyebrows as he raised them to rile against such distractions. Their cover of ‘Feeling Good’ was really good and ‘New Born’ is about as good a live song that I have seen, underpinned by that brilliant rock riff.
Matt Bellamy’s talent is well documented and he was really good, with a voice that is as high quality live as it is on studio recordings and guitar and piano playing that are at another level. Bass player Christopher Wolstenholme tends to sneak under the radar a bit but I doubt there are many better rock bass players out there and Dominic Howard pounds the skins with ‘Grohlesque’ force. Muse are good, very good. If they only realised that they could be much better if they let me write the play list for them I would elevate them into the great category. 92 Points.
Cheers
Jeremy
Disclaimer: I have sold a few of these wines.