Dr. Loosen Uriziger Wurtzgarten Alte Reben Grosses Gewachs 2019:
This was tightly coiled on popping the cork and needed four hours in the decanter to strut its stuff, but what a beautiful peacock it turned out to be. Concentrated and intense with lemon curd, grapefruit, and hints of honey. The palate is really viscous and it just glides arcoss the tongue and coats the mouth, though It has a contrasting and paradoxical weightless quality. The finish is long, salty, stony, and spicy to the point of burning the back of the throat. A thrilling wine.
I drank every last drop, and had I owned a second bottle, I would have exsanguinated that one also. Going back for a case tomorrow.
Itâs awesome when your children grow up to appreciate wine and you get to introduce them to new wines. My daughter was unsure of this at first, but really loved it after it opened up. Beautifully structured and at 6 years it is drinking incredibly.
The Mrs was out of town, so I had my wine dudes over. My son also joined us. We started off with a Maitre de Chai sparkling Chenin Blanc, then a 2015 Ladd Chardonnay that paired nicely with the salad. I then blind tasted them on the 2010-12 Virage vertical + a 2002 Sociando Mallet, which is my sonâs birth year. The Sociando and the 2012 Virage were the favorites.
My son brought a couple of wines he made last summer. They bookend the above photo. The blue raspberry was sweet but not cloying, but the winner was his lightly carbonated Pearsecco, which was terrific!
Had some friends over for a lovely dinner of steak au poivre. The Rare was a magnificent start - full of chalky minerality and airy brioche. It also primed the palate to truly appreciate the Novelty Hill cabernet, which drank far better than its price tag.
The Sassicaia was absolutely fabulous, still very fresh with aromaâs of red fruits, but quite some black fruits on the palate with gorgeous tertiary notes but youâd never guess it was 35+ years old. Its certainly in a great drinking window and will stay there a long time - Iâve got another couple of bottles and Iâll probably wait a few years opening the next as Iâm interested in the development.
The VCC was interesting - the tertiary notes were almost as well developed as the Sassicaia, based on taste youâd never have guessed the two wines were two decades apart. However the tannins on the VCC still werenât so well integrated so it was a little chewy. So I think it needs quite some more years, but at the same time I wonder if the fruit will hold. All in all it was very nice, but didnât quite stand up to its competition.
I decanted the VCC for about 4 hours (I guess 7 hours to until the final glasses) Sassicaia I opened at the same time and just left in the bottle.
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⊠it keeps going and going and goingâŠ
