CWD: what did you drink while traveling?

TN: Durango (July 12-19, 2025)

The semi-annual D&D game meets this time in Durango, CO.

For this flatlander, an incredibly beautiful place with mountains and forests aplenty, numerous birds and megafauna. The drive from Durango to Silverton to Ouray, including the so-called "Million Dollar Highway", is totally memorable for the steep rock faces, plunging waterfalls, and shoulder-less roads that swoop along their edges.

Bruce brought two nice bottles with him and we filled our glasses with drinkin' stuff otherwise:

Dom. Bernard Moreau 2000 Chassagne-Montrachet Rouge "La Cardeuse" Monopole - full and rich, very redfruit, probably over-zealous at one point in its life but great today (previous note of this stash)
Jolivet 2022 IGP Sauvignon Blanc "Attitude" - yup, good Loire wine
Clos la Coutale 2022 Cahors - surprisingly dull, maybe scalped?
Rolet 2020 L'Etoile Blanc Chardonnay "En Novalet" - yup, good Jura wine
Gaillard 2008 Cornas - corked, dammit
Argyle 2021 Chardonnay - just enough acidity to hold together, though maybe not well-integrated
Willm 2021 Alsace Riesling - rather clementine, shapely, excellent
Zenato 2021 Valpolicella Superiore - clean, simple, cherry fruit, good with the final clear-the-fridge meal
 
originally posted by Pavel Tchichikov:

fb was particularly fond of weissburgunder 'orange' '23 (18 months in barrique), and while i like i had a preference for WB '23 'N' that was once again transparently regional, light on its feet, and irresistible (500L tonneau).
[one comment about these WBs is that i quite enjoy them in absolute rather than relative terms,

A friend brought the WB orange 23 to dinner tonight and I very much enjoyed it. Clearly in the “natural” camp but firmly rooted on the side of deliciousness and transparency. Really nice and great with a vegetable pasta.
Earlier in the week I tasted Helmut’s recently bottled WB 24 sur lie (a full year on the lees). This is a new wine but I think it will be very elegant and great with fish. The Silvaner Alte Reben 25 was uncharacteristically open for business already and for the first time more enjoyable than Weisser Jura, which I usually prefer for the first year or so.
 
2023 Vignai da Duline schioppettino. 12.5% and just lovely tonight. I visited several wineries in Friuli in 2023 and there was a sense in conversations with winemakers that Lorenzo and Federica were doing something special with their vineyards. This reminds me of old school Burlotto peleverga before the alcohol levels pushed higher in recent years. Crunchy black pepper and dark berry fruit and very food friendly. Delightful.
 
2019 Dipoli 'Voglar' Sauvignon Blanc Alto Adige An Italian friend loves SB and I often find the Italian versions dreadful (too alcoholic with little subtlety). I went into a nice shop (in Cortona, in Tuscany) to find one and they offered me this. Light and delicious (even if 13%) and verging on the glou glou.
 
originally posted by georg lauer:
The Silvaner Alte Reben 25 was uncharacteristically open for business already and for the first time more enjoyable than Weisser Jura, which I usually prefer for the first year or so.

h has been slowly losing access to teh vines for teh silver ar. iirc from last time we discussed it, this will be the last one. with teh context, i hope your impression makes more sense -- it objectively isn't teh wine it once was.

fb.
 
in teh spirit of this thread, can i offer up teh angelo negro langhe nebbiolo angelin, 2022, which of late i have been happy to open (at a cool fat cave temp) when traveling from teh fatfridge to teh stove, before then guzzling at all stations down teh track.

is it teh best nebbiolo eva? nope. but is it a balanced, refreshing, delightfully fun nebbiolo that brings a grin to teh chubby visage every time i sip it? yes it is. teh see through color is also a treat, as is its insanely low price (in my non-tariffed market at least).

i suspect that most of teh non-bots on teh bored would dig this shit, should they stumble across it.

fb.
 
originally posted by fatboy:
originally posted by georg lauer:
The Silvaner Alte Reben 25 was uncharacteristically open for business already and for the first time more enjoyable than Weisser Jura, which I usually prefer for the first year or so.

h has been slowly losing access to teh vines for teh silver ar. iirc from last time we discussed it, this will be the last one. with teh context, i hope your impression makes more sense -- it objectively isn't teh wine it once was.

fb.

I just realize that I got a bit ahead of things. This was the 24. Which I think was still from both vineyards. 25 was still fermenting.
 
originally posted by fatboy:
teh non-bots

not sure if the following will disqualify me as one, or simply prove that teh llm is getting slicker

was there a data point with same nebbiolo in '21 at the fatschloss?
 
continuing teh theme of fb drinks old c9, teh latest contestant is 1983 domaine lucien barrot et fils chateauneuf-du-pape -- and in teh spirit of this thread, what a trip it was.

to start at teh start, before i even pulled teh cork, it was obvious that this shit had thrown more sediment than any non port wine i have ever encountered. as i peered at teh hooch through teh fatlight, these deposits made teh hooch therein appear colloidal, imbuing it with a green tinge that did not inspire confidence -- albeit that a ray of hope lay in teh fact that viewing it through the neck of teh bottle revealed a deep healthy looking red.

i gave teh fatsink a heads up and proceeded to decant.

first signs were good. but omfg, that color. in my experience, throwing a deposit makes teh hooch paler; if that is true here, then gawd only knows what this looked like in its youth. sure, there was an orange rim to this, but teh core was so deep it verged on black, black, black. on teh nose, i got a hint of undergrowth, macerated plums, some leather and i swear dark chocolate, whilst in teh mouth we have lots of black fruit, a touch of fur, and a texture that is quite insane in its velvety glory. i don't know much about the origins of this hooch, but i suspect some very old vines were involved.

a blast.

fb.
 
FWIW, adding gum arabic to a wine can set the color very dark and often makes it throw a lot of sediment. ‘Certainly not implying it happened here but, considering the age, maybe . . .
 
originally posted by Florida Jim:
FWIW, adding gum arabic to a wine can set the color very dark and often makes it throw a lot of sediment. ‘Certainly not implying it happened here but, considering the age, maybe . . .

yup. anything is possible.

in this case, given the origin i suspect the less manipulative explanation is barrel to barrel bottling, such that teh wine didn't shed teh sediment so much as it was always with it.

to add to which, these old c9s were often bottled over a number of years, so that the later bottles would have far less color or sediment (obv). it's hard to say anything with certainty, but there are a lot of pointers to this being an early bottling.

fb.
 
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