It's critic bingo! (energetic, vertical, explosive beams of tannin)

WINE TALK
2305

It’s time to call in the sappers!

If I regularly used notoriously fragile Riedel stemware, I’d be quite concerned about all the explosive wines on the market today.

Barbaresco Rabajà Riserva 2020
Vinous, Antonio Galloni:
“The 2020 Barbaresco Riserva Rabajà is another stellar wine in this range. Dark and explosive, the 2021 possesses notable richness to match its dark, brooding personality. Black cherry, plum, leather, cloves, menthol, licorice and gravel explode onto the palate. The 2020 will require a measure of patience, but it has a ton of potential.”

2020 Chateau Leoville Las Cases St. Julien
The 2020 Léoville Las Cases has developed into a powerhouse. Then again, that is Las Cases. En primeur, I thought the 2020 was a bit shy, but its true personality has to emerge. Blackberry jam, gravel, spice, menthol, licorice, espresso and plum all saturate the palate. Vivid and explosive, the 2020 is dizzyingly rich, with plenty of Las Cases tannins that will require patience. I am not sure when the 2020 will be ready to drink, but it won’t be anytime soon. Las Cases is one of the wines of the vintage in 2020, that much is pretty clear. Best after 2032." - Neal Martin*

** 2023 Donnhoff Riesling Grosses Gewachs Hollenpfad Im Muhlenberg**
Who can resist this beauty? The explosive nose of yellow peaches and wild blackberries sucks you inexorably into this extremely concentrated, but also incredibly refined and precise dry riesling. A great masterpiece of delicacy and purity, with a finish that doesn’t want to stop pumping out the wet stone minerality. A de facto monopole site for this producer."-Stuart Pigott

2021 Carruades de Lafite Rothschild Pauillac
Sweet black cherries and plums on the nose with blackcurrant leaf touches. Excellent intensity and vibrancy here, you really feel the energy - acidity is good but you get the rush of fruits and the persistence that says; ‘I’ve got so much life in me and I want to show it off’ - this is ready and raring to go! It’s well worked with fine tannins and a long finish. The power and structure is there - it’s just super explosive at this point. You almost want to enjoy this now, or certainly soon, but it’ll go the distance too. Punchy with a joyous spirit! 4% Petit Verdot completes the blend. Drinking Window: 2025 - 2039.” Georgina Hindle, Decanter

2022 Chateau Peby Faugeres St. Emilion
The 2022 Peby Faugères, 100% Merlot, is a rich, heady wine. A blast of black cherry, plum, lavender, licorice, sage, grilled herbs and menthol stains the palate. This sumptuous, explosive Saint-Émilion packs a pretty serious punch. There’s a lot of wine here. This is a gorgeous, stylish offering from Silvio Denz."-Antonio Galloni

Moreau-Naudet & Fils Chablis 1er Cru Montée de Tonnerre 2018 (3L)
Vinous:
The 2018 Chablis Montée de Tonnerre 1er Cru is dense and explosive. At this stage, the personality of the year dominates over site character, but there is obviously time for the wine to come together in élevage.

Cepparello 2020
98+ Points, Antonio Galloni, Vinous: The 2020 Cepparello is a total stunner, just as it was last year. Deeply colored, layered and explosive in the glass, the 2020 possesses striking textural richness and overall intensity. Black cherry, graphite, plum, spice and lavender flesh out effortlessly. There’s tremendous pedigree and sheer stature here. Cepparello is surely one of the wines of the year…

2306

This bugs me. Can it really be possible for something to be simultaneously dense and explosive? Usually after something explodes it’s the opposite of dense. But it could be sequential.

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2307

Sufficient density + critical mass = explosive?

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2308

It’s a supernova of flava!

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2309

Here’s a great example of the pitfalls of writing tasting notes that lean too heavily on flavor and aroma descriptors. The three members of this Decanter tasting panel seem to have tasted different wines:

2012 San Felice Brunello di Montalcino Campogiovanni
Set up by Agricola San Felice in 1980, located on the southwestern edges of the appellation, a 65 hectare estate, where 20 hectares are used for wine production. The terroir is a mix of soils: calcareous, clay and alluvial, creating a balance of power, softness and elegance. They age the wine for 3 years in Slavonian oak casks and 500-litre tonneaux.
BB: Complex cigar-box aromas accompanied by notes of morello cherries, wet stones and mediterranean herbs. Fairly developed palate of sweet black fruit ferried by big, firm tannins to a long, clean finish.
MG: Warm and edgy, charred spice and menthol nose, followed by a full, ripe and juicy palate with concentrated, black pepper-tinged raspberry fruit.
SH: An immediately appealing, enticing nose of cherry fruit and sweet-spice. Love the balance and harmony here, if being a slightly lighter style overall. " - Decanter

After the accord between two tasters on cherries and spice on the nose, everything else is inconsistent:

“Complex cigar-box aromas accompanied by notes of morello cherries, wet stones and mediterranean herbs” versus “charred spice and menthol nose.”

“Palate of sweet black fruit ferried by big, firm tannins” versus “black pepper-tinged raspberry fruit.”

On the one hand, “sweet black fruit ferried by big, firm tannins” and “full, ripe and juicy palate … concentrated” versus “a slightly lighter style overall.”

(Points for use of the verb “ferried,” though!)

2310

What is “black fruit”? Blackberry? Black figs? Black grapes? Black plums? Blackcurrants? Elderberries? Mangosteen?

Don’t even get me started on “spice”.

:roll_eyes:

2311

Black fruit and red fruit are standard terms. I associate red fruit with being brighter, more like raspberry and black fruit with being, well, darker, like, yes, blackberry. Maybe currants as well.

2312

Why not specify the fruit? That’s what I find so lame. Blackberry tastes nothing like blackcurrant. Black, red, pink, and white currants have distinctive tastes. (That’s why I grow a variety, not including blackcurrant as I’m not fond of it.)

2313

Mangosteen is white lmao. I feel like when they can’t pinpoint a specific fruit within the redfruit/ blackfruit spectrum it’s better to use the nondescript term.

2314

As I said, these are standard references that have meanings that most readers grasp. You are asking for them to have denotations they do not have and then complaining when they don’t.

2315

Mangosteen is black (or dark purple) on the outside.

What or who makes them “standard”? Certainly to me those terms are vague (or as KhaN puts it, “nondescript”. If I am tasting with my friends, we don’t say “redfruit” if we taste, say, strawberry as opposed to raspberry or cherry. Those are all distinct flavours and can be described as such.
You say “most readers grasp” what is meant by these terms. So what is “sweet black fruit” supposed to convey?

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2316

It feels to me like “standard” in this case is both generally accepted and lazy. As you note, not all red or blue fruits taste the same.

I admit I’m guilty of it though. I struggle to differentiate most fruits in the context of wine tasting. So when I say ‘red fruit’ I really mean some form of raspberry, cranberry or redcurrant. Though never strawberry, which i can pretty easily identify.

But I agree it’s imprecise even if accepted. Because what I mean could be different than what someone else means.

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2317

So if someone told you to define the taste of an orange, what would you do? Surely, you have seen the note “red fruit” or “black fruit” and have drunk the wine to which the tasting note applied. If you do this lots of times, you’ll get what it means. That’s how one learns what words that designate sense experiences mean. I can’t go further than that for you.

This is not like the infamous “black forest cake.” No one didn’t know what the critic who shall be nameless meant by that. They knew only too well and knew it meant stay as far away as possible.

2318

Because specifying the fruit is faux precision. Grapes mainly taste like grapes, not like elderberries. Specifying the fruit is almost always an indulgence of the imagination, which is fine in the occasional case where the impression is especially vivid, or for pure poetic purposes, which isn’t nothing. But accurate descriptions of their general tones (red, black, dark, bright) are almost always more relevant than whatever fruit salad is coming to your imagination which, as John demonstrates, is not replicable from one person to the next and usually not even from one moment to the next.

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2319

To me those are on the same area of the fruit flavor spectrum, along with black cherry and dark plum – versus redcurrant/strawberry/raspberry/red cherry. As others have said, “black fruit” and “red fruit” make sense to many or most of us.

2320

Exactly!

2321

Call it citrus!

2322

When I write my tasting notes, I generally use the fruit “profile” (red/black/dark). Often this correlates with other factors such as oak usage (lots of new oak tends to make the fruit seem darker). This is just a generic profile to avoid the fruit salad described above. There are very few times when I use specific fruits (usually they are cassis, cranberry, gooseberry or strawberry), which are often very characteristic to certain varieties.
I find that the more notes I write, the less specific I am. No more “scallop shells kissed by Atlantic seawaters off the coast of Normandy”, just “iodine” or “salinity”. No Simon and Garfunkel either, just “savory herbs”.

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2323

I accept “magnetic sip” as a metaphor, though it’s a little clumsy because one doesn’t ordinarily think of liquids as magnetic. But I’ve never encountered watermelon, peony or kiwi peel (peel?) in nebbiolo.

Also, no comment on oak notes? I would expect that a year in second-year barriques would leave an imprint.

2021 Aldo Conterno Langhe Nebbiolo Il Favot
Complex nose of watermelon, cocoa, strawberry, peony and kiwi peel, the palate zesty with rustic yet malleable tannins. A magnetic sip. Grapes from young vineyards in Barolo, the must fermented in stainless steel with three to four days of post-fermentation maceration. After malolactic fermentation in wood, the wine matures for 12 months in second-fill barriques previously used for the Bussiador Chardonnay." - Aldo Fiordelli, Decanter, 94

2324

Kiwi peel is a new one for me too. Watermelon is not a common descriptor for me - maybe in a rose? Nebbiolo though? I dunno. Interesting for sure.