I absolutely love reading tasting notes, but I find them difficult/arduous to try to write.
This coming year, I am resolving to try to hone this skill.
(Sometime in the past year, or so, I think it was Sarah (edited to fix an error), who posted a great template for building note, but now I can’t find it. If anybody knows where it is, let me know.)
Christmas dinner last night…
- 2015 Peter Michael Cuvee Indigine chardonnay. With chards I like, there is an “undescribable” (Sp) sensation I get that only applies to chardonnay…kind of a “sides of the tongue” and on the inside cheek sensation that doesn’t fit to call it a flavor, but it’s a solid noticeable thing. So, this had that in spades. After that sensation arrives, flavors start to hit the brain.
A) Diversion number one: I had a great boss once who spoke Yiddish. He told me that the language was so rich that translations almost always fell short of the actual language. One thing he taught me was to add “but more” to each phrase or word I ran into, and that would get me a little closer to the actual intent/meaning of what was said. I liked that, and think about wine this way, only with “but more” and added my own “but less.” When I run into certain tastes sensations, there are flavors/impressions that bring to mind certain flavors, only it feels like the essence beneath a flavor.
For example: Tropical fruit, but less. The impression of tropical fruit is there, but it doesn’t rise to the level of overt fruit. It is the platonic underpinning of that fruit flavor, to my palate. (Perhaps one one millionth the impression of smelling Juicy Fruit gum. (I shouldn’t even say it that way, but it was ‘rich’ on the nose.)
So, back to the wine…this wine had underpinnings of tropical fruit: like pineapple minus the overt flavor of pineapple, if that makes sense. It had a very pleasant slight tilt toward acidity vs. soft or flabby. Maybe a touch of stone fruit and white night time flower. The wine readily made its way up to my nose from inside my palate and had a great bloom to it. There was a touch of oak, but not much, and no sour milk or overly buttery cling. It had a very long finish.
It held up over several hours and we served it at 52 degrees, but it really opened up at about 30 minutes at room temperature (around 65 degrees at our house.)
Thumbs up.
- 1983 Latour. I am a fan of that vintage, and this wine was totally typical. As I recall, it was in the 30-35 dollar range when I first got these and now we have one less, I think one left. Also served at 52 degrees to start.
My 23 year old son tasted blind and his first impression was “Ticonderoga Number 2.” That pretty much nailed it. The wine had the classics and much loved pencil/pencil lead experience we talk about, but my some thought he was likely the first person to ever use this descriptor. There was almost no bricking (After buying this wine back in the day, it has not seen the light of day since.)
It had great structure, maybe a touch of limestone or wet stone, and ‘dry’ dark fruit. It is still brooding.
We drank it over about 3 hours, and it became a touch more vibrant on the fruit side of things. I am bad at what exactly is cassis, but maybe I’d go with essence of cassis but no sweet/fruit component.
You know those old phrases like, “this wine demands contemplation,” or “this is a serious wine.” I think that sort of applies here.
It went great with the fattiness of our smoked prime rib and it did service to the melange of flavors from the beef, and it mated exceedingly well with the a wild rice/mushroom/pinenut dish, and even with mashed potatoes. This wine is a fine dinner companion.
My wife said, “This is my favorite wine.”
I’d say it will last another 40 years, it’s running on all cylinders right now and is worth your time.
Wishing you all the best. ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
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