Castello di Bossi Chianti Classico Riserva Berardo 2003:
Floral and delicate, but built on the strength of jammy, ripe fruit, licorice, violet-coated chocolate and minerals. A sharp vein of acidity runs through this wine that gives it a stiff backbone and, at least for me, the typical Chianti thumbs down. In vintages like '03 the balance of acidity and fruit have just not found themselves on equal footing yet. I do think this is a good enough wine, however. 88 points
Antinori Tignanello 1985:
Very interesting wine- at first it was both too cold and then showing almost all acid. It reminded me a little of '87 Unico in that for the longest time all you could taste was acid acid acid, but you knew that there was fruit hanging around somewhere. Of course the Unico is a far superior wine. The Tig turned out to be very nice . . . and ended up showing some leathery, nutty flavors, along with some smoke, macerated cherries, burnt vanilla and cedar. A neat wine that paired well with the food at H&F. Thanks Michael. 90 points
Tenuta dell’Ornellaia Masseto Vino da Tavola 1999:
Perhaps one of the most disappointing showings of any wine I have had recently. Not corked but flawed. At a restaurant. Went through the whole “you know what” with a non-wine-professional about what I thought about the wine. It was one of the top ten or fifteen most expensive wines on their list and he had no idea how to handle it. That doesn’t matter . . . what matters is that I have no note for it save this - NR Flawed