Keith Levenberg
Keith Levenberg
Someone sent me a link recently to what looks like the bestest wine bar ever!! Wish I'd known of this place when I was in L.A. recently. The page mentioned that their current favorite BTG pour is a pre-phylloxera carignane by some guy named Bruno Ribiere. That seemed worth hunting down.
The wine, which is $16.99 at Woodland Hills for the 2005, turns out to be the Domaine Ferrer-Ribire VDP des Ctes Catalanes Carignan "Empreinte du Temps." The label enticingly adds "Vignes de 128 Ans"!
The wine is superb and one of those wines in the genre of the Etxegaraya Cuvee Lehengoa that makes me wonder why I ever bother with Bordeaux anymore. If I tried it blind I would've guessed classed Bordeaux in a heartbeat and maybe moved north -- but I definitely wouldn't have thought to move south. It's got a little of that Bordeaux pencil-shavings thing going on and reminds me very much of the '95s I cut my teeth on, ripe but more vinous than fruity. Restrained. The tannin starts out pretty soft and fine-grained but there's plenty of it and it eventually turns the veneer pleasantly woolly, fortunately without drying out what's underneath. It also develops a nice zing and peppery bite to it that seems sorta cab franc-ish but with more muscle. 14% alcohol but I would've surmised less based on how easy it is to drain the bottle.
Really delicious stuff and I'm not sure the six pack I got will be enough. Better and purer, too, than all the pre-phylloxera carignanes I've had from Sardegna's Carignano del Sulcis DOC.
The wine, which is $16.99 at Woodland Hills for the 2005, turns out to be the Domaine Ferrer-Ribire VDP des Ctes Catalanes Carignan "Empreinte du Temps." The label enticingly adds "Vignes de 128 Ans"!
The wine is superb and one of those wines in the genre of the Etxegaraya Cuvee Lehengoa that makes me wonder why I ever bother with Bordeaux anymore. If I tried it blind I would've guessed classed Bordeaux in a heartbeat and maybe moved north -- but I definitely wouldn't have thought to move south. It's got a little of that Bordeaux pencil-shavings thing going on and reminds me very much of the '95s I cut my teeth on, ripe but more vinous than fruity. Restrained. The tannin starts out pretty soft and fine-grained but there's plenty of it and it eventually turns the veneer pleasantly woolly, fortunately without drying out what's underneath. It also develops a nice zing and peppery bite to it that seems sorta cab franc-ish but with more muscle. 14% alcohol but I would've surmised less based on how easy it is to drain the bottle.
Really delicious stuff and I'm not sure the six pack I got will be enough. Better and purer, too, than all the pre-phylloxera carignanes I've had from Sardegna's Carignano del Sulcis DOC.
