Sharon Bowman
Sharon Bowman
We're talking Venice hereabouts, so why not throw in a pinch of Mann-style mortality?
Sunday, the black wing of ear and throat infections swept bilious clouds over my state of health, and I was reduced to a bed-sleeping person for several days running.
However, I could muse on wines I had had mere days before, which were worth recalling from my febrile pillow.
*
Dinner A.
NV Tarlant Brut Rserve - 30/30/30 pinots noir and meunier and chardonnay, lots of info on the back label, which I lovebut what I love even more about this wine (principally from the 2005 vintage) is its dazzling equanimity. It's just good champagne, you can't skew it. Your Zalto flute, should you be so lucky as to possess one, glows with the bead and shimmer, and you sip.
07 Pacalet Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru - For all the grumbling I make over PP's costly hipsterishness, every time I sit down to a bottle from him, I delight. This was no different, perhaps better. Just vibrant, lovely, smooth, exquisite complexity and zing. What was I eating? Veal? Lamb with a parsnip "french fry"? All I could do was stare into its eyes.
07 Champ-Levat Mondeuse - My dealings with this wine in its several vintages have been balloted about on winds both stinging and gentle. A couple of times, I've execrated it. Quite a few, I've warmed roundly. Here was a pleasantly funky encounter with the wine. It's got a bit of volatility, but it's deep and juicy and acidic and impenitent.
*
Lunch B.
99 Clape Cornas - Willi's Wine Bar is back open after renovations, and though the tables nearer the door are to be privileged for the nonce, given the tang of paint that still hovers, it is by no means an address to shun. The food astounds, with its lashings of yellow-foot chanterelles and crisply roast guinea hen, its madly good little parts of quail dispersed about a salad with sheep's-foot mushrooms (damn, how you say them in English?), and then a wine list with things like this. A thing like 99 Clape Cornas that gives it up. Such rustic-and-ready, slightly grainy-textured depth, so terroir-perfect. So good.
*
Dinner C.
06 Drouhin Mercurey - Does anyone know if this sees oak? Seems odd that it should, given the humble strivings of its terroir. But it had a distinct caramelly note, to me. All right stuff; paired well with sauted veal kidney with balsamic reduction and pure of parsnips. (Parsnips pursue me in my dreams.)
08 Tour Boise Minervois - Second time I've had this Languedoc bruiser in the past few weeks, and second time I've awed at the fact that its bruises are like the slightest brush of a bird's wing (oh, please, no eye-rolling; I'm a girl, I can get away with overblown similes from time to time, if I smile with great ingenuousness). All deep fruit but astoundingly light of touch. I mean, seriously, really astoundingly light of touch.
A different Languedoc was tasted alongside (granted an 07), and it came off pruny, dense.
03 Radikon Jakot - Ha ha ha, I had a bottle of this in my Paris cellar! Why? How? One hint: he may be associated with a restaurant in Tudor City, and he may send bottles overseas with agreeable colleagues. This was my first orange wine ever, tasted a year ago in New York, and it is still a thing of joy. Opened and poured and finished at cellar temperature, this was its own delight of the usual spices and gingerbread and all things nice.
05 Overnoy Poulsard - I don't know why this has just come out, as the 08 has, too, but I'm not complaining. A strange nose of brett upfront cedes entirely to the depth and tangle of light, bright fruit. It's like a wintry scape with some kind of very thorny vines with bright red berries on them. It's maybe a little darker and denser than the 06s, 07s and 08s I've come to know in the past couple of years.
*
Lunch D.
00 Coule de Serrant - I was having oysters, and my cellar is not crawling with Muscadet (to the tune of zero), and my prefered styles of champagne are more vinous and less apt to pair with the brine, as well. So I went with one of the rare chenins that I have down there. But this was not what I had been expecting it to be. Very dark, dark yellow in the decanter, it had slightly oxidative notes on the nose and palate and was a bit botrytised. I liked it, however. Good length. I've heard that the terroir struggles its way out from whatever the winemaking does to it; I wish there could be a point of comparison. However, in the name of science, and wondering about ol' N. Joly's saying that this needs a good lead time for opening, I wandered off after and had a nap. Tasted several hours later, the rest was shot. Down the drain.
*
Apro E.
98 Selosse - A thing of purity and beauty. This wine is astonishing for its clarity, its length, the precision of its Avize juice. It has none of the deep (and to some, excessive) sherry-ish, wood-loving pungency of Substance. It is a bright minuet of Selosse. Joy in a glass.
NV Lassaigne Ros - This had a bit to overcome, riding on the heels of 98 Selosse, but a couple of sips in, it had taken its place. Both white and pink, both austere and pleasure-giving, low in its dosage and wearing it well, this is a ros that also plays the card of offhand pitch-perfect balance. It was even more tasty the second day, as I warily watched the dread black wing of illness swoop down on me, nose heedlessly stuck in my Zalto flute.
Sunday, the black wing of ear and throat infections swept bilious clouds over my state of health, and I was reduced to a bed-sleeping person for several days running.
However, I could muse on wines I had had mere days before, which were worth recalling from my febrile pillow.
*
Dinner A.
NV Tarlant Brut Rserve - 30/30/30 pinots noir and meunier and chardonnay, lots of info on the back label, which I lovebut what I love even more about this wine (principally from the 2005 vintage) is its dazzling equanimity. It's just good champagne, you can't skew it. Your Zalto flute, should you be so lucky as to possess one, glows with the bead and shimmer, and you sip.
07 Pacalet Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru - For all the grumbling I make over PP's costly hipsterishness, every time I sit down to a bottle from him, I delight. This was no different, perhaps better. Just vibrant, lovely, smooth, exquisite complexity and zing. What was I eating? Veal? Lamb with a parsnip "french fry"? All I could do was stare into its eyes.
07 Champ-Levat Mondeuse - My dealings with this wine in its several vintages have been balloted about on winds both stinging and gentle. A couple of times, I've execrated it. Quite a few, I've warmed roundly. Here was a pleasantly funky encounter with the wine. It's got a bit of volatility, but it's deep and juicy and acidic and impenitent.
*
Lunch B.
99 Clape Cornas - Willi's Wine Bar is back open after renovations, and though the tables nearer the door are to be privileged for the nonce, given the tang of paint that still hovers, it is by no means an address to shun. The food astounds, with its lashings of yellow-foot chanterelles and crisply roast guinea hen, its madly good little parts of quail dispersed about a salad with sheep's-foot mushrooms (damn, how you say them in English?), and then a wine list with things like this. A thing like 99 Clape Cornas that gives it up. Such rustic-and-ready, slightly grainy-textured depth, so terroir-perfect. So good.
*
Dinner C.
06 Drouhin Mercurey - Does anyone know if this sees oak? Seems odd that it should, given the humble strivings of its terroir. But it had a distinct caramelly note, to me. All right stuff; paired well with sauted veal kidney with balsamic reduction and pure of parsnips. (Parsnips pursue me in my dreams.)
08 Tour Boise Minervois - Second time I've had this Languedoc bruiser in the past few weeks, and second time I've awed at the fact that its bruises are like the slightest brush of a bird's wing (oh, please, no eye-rolling; I'm a girl, I can get away with overblown similes from time to time, if I smile with great ingenuousness). All deep fruit but astoundingly light of touch. I mean, seriously, really astoundingly light of touch.
A different Languedoc was tasted alongside (granted an 07), and it came off pruny, dense.
03 Radikon Jakot - Ha ha ha, I had a bottle of this in my Paris cellar! Why? How? One hint: he may be associated with a restaurant in Tudor City, and he may send bottles overseas with agreeable colleagues. This was my first orange wine ever, tasted a year ago in New York, and it is still a thing of joy. Opened and poured and finished at cellar temperature, this was its own delight of the usual spices and gingerbread and all things nice.
05 Overnoy Poulsard - I don't know why this has just come out, as the 08 has, too, but I'm not complaining. A strange nose of brett upfront cedes entirely to the depth and tangle of light, bright fruit. It's like a wintry scape with some kind of very thorny vines with bright red berries on them. It's maybe a little darker and denser than the 06s, 07s and 08s I've come to know in the past couple of years.
*
Lunch D.
00 Coule de Serrant - I was having oysters, and my cellar is not crawling with Muscadet (to the tune of zero), and my prefered styles of champagne are more vinous and less apt to pair with the brine, as well. So I went with one of the rare chenins that I have down there. But this was not what I had been expecting it to be. Very dark, dark yellow in the decanter, it had slightly oxidative notes on the nose and palate and was a bit botrytised. I liked it, however. Good length. I've heard that the terroir struggles its way out from whatever the winemaking does to it; I wish there could be a point of comparison. However, in the name of science, and wondering about ol' N. Joly's saying that this needs a good lead time for opening, I wandered off after and had a nap. Tasted several hours later, the rest was shot. Down the drain.
*
Apro E.
98 Selosse - A thing of purity and beauty. This wine is astonishing for its clarity, its length, the precision of its Avize juice. It has none of the deep (and to some, excessive) sherry-ish, wood-loving pungency of Substance. It is a bright minuet of Selosse. Joy in a glass.
NV Lassaigne Ros - This had a bit to overcome, riding on the heels of 98 Selosse, but a couple of sips in, it had taken its place. Both white and pink, both austere and pleasure-giving, low in its dosage and wearing it well, this is a ros that also plays the card of offhand pitch-perfect balance. It was even more tasty the second day, as I warily watched the dread black wing of illness swoop down on me, nose heedlessly stuck in my Zalto flute.
