TN: Soul Flavors (9/5/08)

J

Jeff Grossman

Jeff Grossman
Another visit to Soul Flavors; another fall-apart-tender beef short rib.

The happy winos -- Jay, Keith & Tamar, Paul & Sandy, yours truly -- are also tucking into heaps of fresh fried chicken, meaty crab cakes, cornbread & biscuits, and on and on.

Conveniently, we had a few bottles of wine with us:

Muller-Catoir 2002 Gimmeldinger Mandelgarten Riesling Spatlese - 51740791703, white peach and minerals, just barely sweet, beautiful

Robinot (l'Opera des Vins) 2005 VdT "Concerto D'Oniss" ("Tokyo la nuit" label) - slightly frizzante, pale red, textbook pineau d'aunis: sharp acidity, white pepper, someone else cries, "Asparagus!" but I think this is very drinkable

Brundlmayer 1998 Ried Kaferberg Gruner Veltliner - "Gorgeous" - Jay, rich, unctious, slight vegetable whiff, wow

Confuron-Contetidot 1988 Nuits-St-Georges 1er - here we go: Jay wants to see how an Accad wine ages... it's a bruiser, youthful color with a good Burg nose but tastes like a Cotes-du-Rhone; "Tarry" - Jay

Tollot-Beaut 2001 Corton-Bressandes GC - aggressive nose, slight cola taste, "Now this tastes like a Cotes-du-Rhone" - Keith, pretty uninspiring wine

De La Montanya 2003 "Pin-Up Cabaret" - 46% cab, 29% zin, 25% syrah; full on cab flavor profile with a dose of caramel way at the end; this improves in the glass for a while, but then the oak starts to stick out

La Sibilla 2006 Campi Flegrei Piedirosso - candied nose, thin mid-palate, no grip and not much flavor; "Shout from the rooftops wine" - Keith; a chacun

Olga Raffault 1990 Chinon "Les Picasses" - fennel and barnyard, tabacky and currants, yum

Dard & Ribo 2006 Crozes-Hermitages "Les Rouges des Baties" - certainly a nice Crozes but I don't understand the fuss that Keith and Jay are making over it

Dard & Ribo 2006 Hermitage - unsulfured, wow, this one I understand: classic red fruit basket with so much backbone, juice, earth; tres propre

Roagna 1993 Barolo "La Rocca & La Pira" - classic barolo flavor in a slightly lighter-weight package; the acidity works well against the rich food

Clos de Tue-Boeuf 2007 Cheverny "Frileuse" "Rouillon" - transparent, light pinot noir, fragrant, delicious; I prefer mine on Day 2

Although I was tempted to take several of the wines home with me, we decided to leave the remnants for the staff, in the name of education. And, they failed to charge us corkage ($5/table).

General consensus gives WOTN nods to the whites.

But I'm shopping for Robinot and Ribo.
 
Well, my effort to convert more people to La Sibilla was a failure this time, but I still adore that wine. Glad the D&R's were such a hit at least. I think the Hermitage was the only wine we finished. Lots of fun stuff though. One day I'll have to order a dish that actually goes with the wines we bring but that fried chicken is too awesome to pass up.
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
Well, my effort to convert more people to La Sibilla was a failure this time, but I still adore that wine. Glad the D&R's were such a hit at least. I think the Hermitage was the only wine we finished. Lots of fun stuff though. One day I'll have to order a dish that actually goes with the wines we bring but that fried chicken is too awesome to pass up.
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D&R wines are fine, but much more about quaffable syrah than wine of terroir and breed. They should especially be ashamed of the Hermitage. I don't give a shit about a piss-poor terroir like Crozes, but Hermitage...do better.

The La Sibilla wines are interesting. I found the last red I had to be a bit soft and muddy, but they are worth watching. Well done Oliver though for coming up with something interesting and for Keith for spreading the word. This is a wine that I read about on the gout bored and tried because of Keith (and John Downing at Hi-Times, good bloke BTW).
 
originally posted by VLM:
D&R wines are fine, but much more about quaffable syrah than wine of terroir and breed. They should especially be ashamed of the Hermitage. I don't give a shit about a piss-poor terroir like Crozes, but Hermitage...do better.
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I might agree with you here on the St.-Joseph and the base Crozes, but the Rouges des Baties shows a lot of character that makes the base Crozes just taste like a bottle of syrah in comparison. Hermitage was a little more primary but a very classy presentation - definitely showed the breed of Hermitage-grade terroir. I guess ageability is the question mark given the sulfur thing and the fact that the producer encourages drinking 'em young.
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
originally posted by VLM:
D&R wines are fine, but much more about quaffable syrah than wine of terroir and breed. They should especially be ashamed of the Hermitage. I don't give a shit about a piss-poor terroir like Crozes, but Hermitage...do better.
Click to expand...
I might agree with you here on the St.-Joseph and the base Crozes, but the Rouges des Baties shows a lot of character that makes the base Crozes just taste like a bottle of syrah in comparison. Hermitage was a little more primary but a very classy presentation - definitely showed the breed of Hermitage-grade terroir. I guess ageability is the question mark given the sulfur thing and the fact that the producer encourages drinking 'em young.
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Is drink D&R young.

But don't you expect a bit more from Hermitage? Admittedly, Hermitage is hard to figure out, given that there aren't many choices and some of them are highly spoofulated*.

* Not that we have defined this yet, but we're getting there.
 
I love the Hermitage - it's delicious Syrah, and I don't see the need for them to try to match up to the big boys of the appellation. Lighten up, monkey - no point being old and grumpy.
 
On the D and R wines (only 1 sampling) I thought the Hermitage was very good, and my question about it was why wouldn't it age well. The guy pouring said D and R make the wine to drink young, with attention to the tannins. To me it seemed like it had the balance and structure to age nicely. Low sulfur wines if stored properly should age just fine.

On the other two, I liked the St Joseph better. The Crozes wasn't showing very much the time I tried it.
 
originally posted by Chris Coad:
My Soul Flavor invitation must've gotten lost in the mail.

Snf.

No, it's okay, really.
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Aack! My fault. Sorry. We'll have to do another one soon to make up for it.

Anyway, both D&R wines were gorgeous and I kept going back and forth for which I preferred. The Muller Catoir was surprisingly good given the turmoil at the estate that year. Loved the gruner and the Rouillon. The crab cakes were not up to their usual standard but the lamb pot pie goes back on the menu in a week or so.
 
Oh, and the oak on the de la Montanya was oppressively present from the beginning. The Tollot Beaut was incredibly lackluster and I don't see what Keith sees in the Sibilla.

The Confuron-Condeditot was an experiment with an interesting outcome. I had read that they were an Accad-follower back then (hopefully Claude or someone will correct me if that isn't really true) and I was curious how such a wine might age. It was interesting and pretty good if not what I really look for in Burgundy. Thick and tarry, reasonably complex and definitely improved with air. At least one person's WOTN. An experiment I might repeat though not with any sense of urgency.
 
The Tollot-Beaut showed better the second day. Seemed to mellow out some and allowed the fruit to shine through.

I was disappointed in the Chinon. Way too much brett.

Dard & Ribo was a welcome new find for me. Hermitage was just as you described.

And what the hell are they thinking at de la montanya in mixing Cab, Zin and Syrah and then covering it all with a wall of oak. The only redeeming value was the label. Really nice legs. Too bad the wine sucked.
 
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