2019 Red Electric Chardonnay Alpine Lily–this is our wine, so I won’t review, but drinking great right now.
1998 Jos. Christoffel Jr. Ürziger Wurzgarten Riesling Spätlese–(served with an Italian Saffron Fregula Clam and Mussel soup). Wonderfully rich and dense, balanced with ample acid, graphite and light diesel that blew off and offered white flowers, peach and honeydew. At 7% alcohol, this went down far too easily. Plenty of freshness but hard to imagine it improving much henceforth.
The next two wines were served with Mario Batali’s “Chicken with Cooked Wine”–always a favorite in my house but a challenging wine match. Perhaps a better match, for next time, would be Amarone or Sfurzato, But I digress.
2005 Bois de Boursan CdP. OK, we have enjoyed wonderful wines from this producer. This bottling is not their richer Cuvee Felix, and again the 2005 shows firmness, grip, iron, some green notes and angularity. This CdP comes off relatively underfruited and lacking charm. This is our second time with the 2005, with consistent notes. In retrospect, the Cuvee Felix would have been a better match with this meal. For the record, one of the great QPRs in memory was the 1998 Bois de Boursan CdP–what an exotic and complete wine that was.
2001 Domaine de la Janasse Chaupin CdP. I selected this wine to accompany the food because with previous experience with this producer I have come to expect wines with richness, depth and sweetness. While I tend to prefer other producers in general (VT, Beaucastel, Charvin, Pegau, Clos de Papes), this was showing really well and was a terrific match with the sweet chicken dish. This wine nicely rode the line between black and red Grenache driven fruit profile, was rich but not excessively weighty, showing more fruit than earth.
Rare Wine Co. Historic Series Madeira Boston Bual Special Reserve. Paired with Organic Italian Plum tart. Not a blockbuster pour, but nutty and figgy and an excellent pairing with dessert. A prominent Kahlua note is hard to miss, and adds to the complexity of the wine. Lacks a little punch, I suppose, but a lovely drink.
cheers,
Doug