I think this is the 100th post in this thread. Looking on CT, I was fortunate this year to have 3 wines that I rated 100 points:
2015 Roagna Barbaresco Crichët Pajé
2/3/2024 - I like this wine: 100 points
Vinous 2019 Barolo Masterclass (The Pool Restaurant, NYC):
Herbal red fruit in the nose. Ethereal from start to finish. A wine of such finesse and quality. Explosive in the mouth. Amazing, a show stopper. I wanted to cry at the beauty of this wine. Sadly it is well over $1000 here in the US.
2001 Cappellano Barolo Piè Franco Otin Fiorin (Gabutti)
5/16/2024 - I like this wine: 100 points
Giacosa Riservas and Cappellano Francos (Hearth Restaurant, NYC): [Double-decanted for 3 hours at 8pm the night before.] Stunning nose of black fruit, licorice, and something dark and floral. Rich, complex, tannic, but with plenty of rich black fruit. Archetypal Serralunga. Wow! Still quite young, but incredible harmony and balance. WOTN for me.
1994 Zind-Humbrecht Tokay Pinot Gris Clos Jebsal Sélection de Grains Nobles Trié Spéciale Alsace
11/16/2024 - I like this wine: 100 points
Dinner with Mike G and Dave B (Châteauneuf-du-Salil, Albany): [Pop and pour.] Mind-blowing perfume of honey and tropical fruit. Viscous, but not like a Sauternes. It has an elegance and lightness that blows me away. Super long finish of orange, pineapple, honey, and papaya. This is heaven. This wine has 540 grams of residual sugar per liter and 12 grams of acid with only 4% alcohol, but the harmony is amazing.
I have 2@ of the 2010 and 2012 Tenuta delle Terre Nere Etna Rosso PrePhylloxera La Vigna di Don Peppino. I should open one soon. Do you think they’re built to age?
Scott,
I’m happy to see these showed so well. I’ve cellared some of those exact bottles and vintages (Gloria, Krug, Nervi, plus PYCM’s (other St. Aubins) and Pio Cesare Barbaresco and Barbaresco from nearby vintages ('50, '57, '58, '59, '62, '64, '71, '74, '78, '82). Their 1959 Barolo was one of my top 5 or 10 wines from this year. It would make a fun vertical tasting of Pio Cesare, but I don’t have the endurance for that.
Cheers,
Warren
Only had a few wines ever that stopped me down quite like that. One was a perfect condition 1982 Pichon Lalande that was so stunning I was sad that it would be gone after we drank it, that other folks with whom I love to drink wine would not have this exact same experience, this exact same sensory memory. A death is the mother of beauty moment. Cheers for the note. That type of moment is really the only indicator of “perfect” in a wine, and it’s so incredibly rare.
Honestly, the California wines I have had this year have not impressed me as much as other wines I have had this year or other California wines I have had in prior years. The best California wine I have had this year was a 1999 Ridge MB that was excellent but not as complex as my favorite Ridge wines I have had. If it gains more complexity with age, it could make the list in a future year.
Time to add two wines - 2014 Bouchard Meursault Perrieres and 2014 Bouchard Chevalier Montrachet. The latter wine is a candidate for my wine of the year.
Champagne:
2002 Salon
2007 Salon
2006 Bollinger VVF
2006 Krug Clos de Mesnil
2002 Krug Clos de Mesnil
2006 Salon
1888 Krug
1996 Krug
2015 Cedric Bouchard Boloree
2011 Cedric Bouchard Ursules
1999 Cristal
2013 Cristal
2021 Cedric Bouchard Val Vilaine
2018 Cedric Bouchard Val Vilaine
Discovery: Aligote in general and 2017 Sylvain Pataille Aligote in particular
I found a stash of these and drank them all. They were like a plusher, silkier (demure?) cousin of gruner, giving that slight herbal bitterness on the finish. This led me on a deep dive into the Aligote pool and I have found a lot to love there, aided (I suspect) by the warming burgundy climate. Am now aging many examples for further exploration in the coming years.
I’m new to the world of wine in 2024, but it’s been a fun journey discovering new wines and learning a ton from reading all the WB threads. This community introduced me to Rivers Marie and Di Costanzo, which were great discoveries I would not have encountered in retail stores. Have a few 2010 Schraders in my cellar and am hoping to try one before year-end, never would have thought I would be paying that much for a bottle of wine before this year ha-ha, funny how that changes when you get hooked!
This year I particularly enjoyed:
2017 Rivers Marie Lore Vineyard
2019 Di Co
2019 Di Costanzo Farella Vineyard
2015 Valdicava Brunello
