Chris Coad
Chris Coad
The word came down from Wine Disorder's own SFJoe: Victor de la Serna, the Manchuela Mauler, was swinging through the big town bearing the inky-purple fruits of his labors. Would Lisa and I possibly be available on short notice to bear witness to his lonely stand against the oppressive conformity of thin, sour wines from chilly places?
Damn straight we would.
So it is that we find ourselves, after a brief unintentional subway detour through Brooklyn, rapping at the burnished metal door of Chteauneuf-du-Joe, bottles in hand. We're joined by the unflappable Levi Dalton, the irrepressible Bradley Kane, the inscrutible Elissa, and of course our host of hosts, the Man himself, SFJoe.
To wash away the subway grit we start with a Domaine de la Ppire Muscadet Sevre etc. 'Granit de Clisson' 2005 (magnum). Smells like rainwater with a dash of lemon-lime citricity and a touch of swimming pool greenness. Tastes lean, racy and bright and oh so very easy to drink. Not deep or layered, but impressively focused and pure. Very refreshing, lovely with the snacky pistachios and salty smoked meat product. Since we're noshing on smoked meat, it's inevitable that Josh Raynold's name comes up. "The meat fairy?" asks Elissa. "Who's that?"
"He's our favorite local barbeque chef," explains Kane. "Wait, is that right? Barbeque chef?"
"Pitmaster?" suggest Joe.
"Lord of the Smoker!" I offer, which seems to fit nicely.
"And you should see him tending the smoker shirtless in striped pants!" laughs Joe. Elissa seems confused, but intrigued at this notion.
Kane's on the phone with .sasha, shouting driving directions into his handset. Joe, cringing, waves him away: "Brad, if you're going to bellow into your cellphone, can you take it elsewhere?" Kane moves across the room, all the while shouting stuff about taking the FDR, no stoplights. What's up with the cellphone-shouting thing?
In an attempt to drown him out, we've got a mini-vertical, starting with a Didier Dagueneau Blanc Fum de Pouilly 'Silex' 2002. Lightly tropical aromaticslilikoi, grapefruit, lemon, hint of green chile. Medium bodied, crisp and vivid and rather languid, gently fleshy. Tastes spicy, layered, complex, really lithe & expressive wine, all kinds of stuff going on. Great with the oysters n'morels on seaweed bread. Seaweed bread? Is that right?
The younger sibling, a Didier Dagueneau Blanc Fum de Pouilly 'Silex' 2006 is a paler straw color. There's a noticeable rattan streak mingling with the citric aromatics that wasn't present in the older wine. Bright and racy and still rather clenched, it's leaner and tighter than the '02; seems more focused but less giving at the moment. Still, lots of potential. Hold.
Here's .sasha knocking at the door, strangely intact after following Kane's directions, and here's the guest of honor himself, bustling in laden with luggage. It's been almost a decade since I last saw Victorhe's slimmer and a bit more salt-and-peppery in the hair, but the velvety baritone is the same, as is the enthusiasm for wines that push the unfashionable envelope of ripeness. He waves to the assembled geeks and sets about unpacking his wares.
While we wait, here's a Trimbach Riesling Alsace Clos Ste. Hune 1982. Medium gold color. Smells of kerosene, yellow apple, almonds and orange rind; flickery-complex aromatics. A sip, and it's a bit severe right up front, shouldering past my teeth and pushing my tongue aside. But then it relaxes a little, spreading out and settling in. The wine is broad and strong, almost viscous, with a steely acidic core. There's a nutty skin to the yellow-lampoil flavors that hints at tiredness, but the last impression is that of a strong, slightly bruised pugilist who's still quite ready to go the distance. Compelling stuff.
Kane sips at the Clos Ste. Hune, makes a face, tosses his sizeable pour right into the dump bucket, to audible gasps all around. "Oh no," says Joe, "did you really just do that?"
Kane shrugs. "Oxidized."
Joe frowns. "Not sweet, you mean.'"
"Dude, we could've gotten you a couple of sugar packets," I moan. "You could've fixed it right up!"
Here's some kind of chicken part buried under some kind of tan chunky-spicy sauce. Something called 'papillon'? Mostly pistachios? I don't quite catch it, but it sure tastes good, despite looking sort of pre-digested. To wash it down there's a Huet Vouvray le Haut-Lieu Demisec 1959. There's a light chlorine hint at first that has me worried, but it fades and turns towards aged-chenin wooliness. Quite sweet for a demisec, glyceriney and glossy-rich. Broadbeamed, sweet and muscular chenin that's just turning towards tertiary complexity. In better shape than most of the molleux '59s I've tasted, this seems to want more sleepy time, but it has a lot to recommend it right now. In fact, let me pour myself some more, just to make sure my impressions are on point. Wait, just a bit more, that'll help my appraisal.
"Good heavens," sighs Victor. "I'm embarassed to be pouring my humble country wines after such beautiful specimens." But he takes a deep breath and starts to open bottles, passing around printed leaflets in the meantime. I sneak a peek:
"Finca Sandoval at SFJoe's: An unabashed, unfettered, unscrupulous and uncouth evening of spoofulation, warm-climate, high-alcohol red wines that aren't sold at Chambers Street. Sorry."
A countercultural manifesto? Awesome! Okay then, here we go, kiddies. Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a jammy night!
First off is a Finca Sandoval Manchuela 'Salia' 2006 (45% syrah, 41% alicante bouschet, 14% garnacha). Inky purply-black color. Big fruitbowl aromaticsraspberry and plum jams, Hubba Bubba, dark licoricey streak. Tastes just like it smells, broad and rich and extravagantly fruited. The acidity is struggling a bit under the plushness of the fruit, but some roughish tannins that emerge post-middle help give it some mouthgrab. A fun wine. Where's Camblor tonight, he'd really dig this...? I return from my momentary fruit-fugue to sputter "Jeez, this is the 'light one' for early drinking? Yikes!"
"Don't forget," cautions Victor, "we're seven hundred miles south of Chteauneuf-du-Pape. We don't need to spoof to get huge ripeness."
Next is a Finca Sandoval Manchuela 'Signo' 2006 (90% bobal, 10% syrah). Inky purply-black color. Black raspberry and plum jam laced with licorice, smells boisterously ripe. Tastes rich and rough and jammy, unsubtle big red- and blackfruit supported by a firm acidic spine, this has the feel of something made in a drunken farmer's bathtub. In a good way. I find some similarity with a bigass petite sirah, but there aren't apparently too many other PS fans in attendance, because my view gains little traction amongst the assembled faithful. Still, it's rustic and ripe and purple and rough-edgedly simple--the fruit is just WHOMP right there, take it or leave it or get out of the way of the purple steamroller. I like it, but it's a bit tiring, like a St. Bernard puppy leaping and slobbering all over me.
Victor is concerned about the subdued nature of my current Aloha shirt, a calm 50s-style blue-and-tan number. "You've gone conservative," he frets. I object that this evening I'm merely sporting a classic cotton Reyn Spooner look that suits the gravity of tonight's tasting. Happily, Kane has some cellphone snaps of me at the recent Camblorfest in a loud red internationally-styled spoofy rayon version. Viewing those, VS is appeased. Keep the faith, brother.
Speaking of pictures, why does Kane keep taking snapshots of the food on his plate? It's kind of unnerving, like some weird CIA thing. The flashes are burning my retinas. What's going on? "Damn paparazzi, stop hounding me!" I snap at Kane. Elissa gently corrects me: "Paparazzo."
"Whatever. PUT THE FUCKING CAMERA AWAY, KANE," I urge gently. He ignores me completely. Flash, flash. Ow. Ow.
Here's a Finca Sandoval Manchuela 2006 (76% syrah, 13% monastrell, 12% bobal). The flagship wine, and the only one to see new wood (about 50%, according to the manifesto). Inky purply-black color. More complex aromatics than either of the first twomeaty-smoky blackberry and black raspberry notes, good dusting of savory-peppery smokiness laces through the purple-redfruit. Along the lines of a restrained Barossa shiraz, it's the most complete of the wines so far. Not for the faint of heart, but has an outsized elegance to it.
Levi shares my discomfort with the quality of the candid photography tonight. He looks at the viewscreen of Kane's camera, grimaces, "I look like a baboon." I feel like pointing out that the baboon is a noble animal, whereas I usually end up looking like the corpse of Elvis, but I'm distracted by the appearance of a Finca Sandoval Manchuela 2001. It's a deep garnet color, hint of purple at the rim. Smells oddly milky-funky; there's something not quite right here. Victor wonders if it's corked, though it doesn't quite seem like TCA to me, but definitely not the wine I remember. Frankly, I always liked this wine more than Victor ever seemed to. He seems to think it a so-so effort, but to me there was a calmness, a restraint that I haven't seen in subsequent vintages. Not that I'm not a fan of the big purple, but I think the red-blackfruit in this one said something interesting as well, in maybe not quite so shirazzy a fashion. Still, this is an off bottle, so I'll stop talking about it now.
Here's Joe's tenderloin of bison, and Victor is delighted: "Thank you, Joe, for thinking of bison!" he booms. "You've finally found a good food match for Finca Sandoval!"
The last of the dry reds is a Finca Sandoval Manchuela Cuve TNS 2006 (60% touriga nacional, 40% syrah). Inky purply-black color. Some aromatic complexity here, there's a light minty streak and a gentle African-violet florality that lends interest to the bigass fruit. In the piehole it's much in the mold of the others, broad and ripe and pornographically fruited, another bodacious mouthful. I've been vaccinated by much early exposure to Turley zins and petite sirahs, but I sense some of the more fragile geeks aren't sure what to make of a serious bigass hootie like this. Me, I just grab some bison chunks and chow down with the purple. For some reason that I'm not entirely clear on, this wine is only produced in magnums, 550 of 'em. Although our bottle isn't a magnum, it's a bottle that's been decanted from a magnum. Or something like that, it's all very complicated to my purple-soaked cerebellum.
Levi hears us talking about Kane's weird late-jeebus forays on J-Date joyously rejecting women well above his station, and exclaims, "So that's real? I read that, but I thought it was all made up stuff, it sounded too unbelievable. Who would be shallow enough to reject someone for having a crooked nose, or suspecting them of being a fake Jew? That's crazy!"
Sigh. My curse is that of CassandraI speak truth, but am not believed. In this case I've got Kane here to confirm all the details, but I know it won't be long before someone says, apropos of something else, "C'mon, that can't be true, you must've made that up!" I suppose it's my destiny, no use fighting it.
Here's the dessert syrah, a Finca Sandoval Manchuela Cuve Cecilia 2007 (70% late harvest syrah, 30% moscatel de Alejandra). Inky purply-black color, even purpler than the others, if that's possible. Seriously, you could paint a wall with this, no primer needed. Smells boisterously ripe, plum jam and blackberries laced with hot gravel. Tastes vivid and rich, very sweet and grapey-purple, like grape juice concentrate. Bright acidity and a surprisingly matte texture keep it from cloying, but it's a wacky, over-the-top wine, even in this company. It tickles me. Sweet syrah? Why not? Awesome.
There's also a Finca Sandoval Aguardiente de Orujo 2007, which is sort of a Spanish grappa. I'm no fan of grappa; to me this smells and tastes like gently floral-accented gasoline. Drink only if you need to get drunk fast fast fast.
Brad has a Mystery Red Wine. This invariably means he has some kind of axe to grind, but we're pleasantly buzzed enough to put up with whatever nonsense he's up to now. Smells ripe and blackberry-blackcurranty with some stewed tomato notes, slightly decayed, perhaps past its best days but still alive. Medium-bodied and fleshy, with rather shy acidity, it's blowsy but not ponderous, seems to be in a pretty decent place now, some tertiary development, maybe just the beginnings of cracks in the plaster, but loose and pleasant to drink. A wine that wasn't meant to go long that's gone a bit farther than it should. Seems Napa cabernet-ish to me, I guess Arns '95. (Hacienda Monasterio Ribera del Duero Crianza 1996)
Yet again, Kane seems to using his 'mystery wine' to pursue some strange grudge known only to himself: "HA!" he crows as he rips the wrapping off the bottle. "And you all said this wine was dead!"
Everyone regards him blankly. "I don't remember ever offering an opinion on this wine," says Joe.
"No, me neither," says .sasha. Victor shrugs, Levi stares, Elissa looks blank.
"I've never tasted this wine before in my life," I point out.
"Well..." sputters Brad, "you all said some other Spanish wine I sold you from around the same time was dead!"
Ah, touch.
Edmunds St. John Syrah El Dorado County Wylie-Fenaughty 2001. Smoky lean baconberry aromatics, blackberry and pepper. Medium-lightbodied and nervy, with a sinewy, taut pieholefeel. Elegant, bracing California syrah, in a very nice place. Victor makes a face, "Underripe." Joe takes exception to this, insists he go back and retaste. He does so, concedes it may be ripe after all, just not in the inky-and-purple sense. Victor may have a blind spot, as this is lean, lovely, completely ripe California syrah. I could easily down a few glasses and still want more.
Elissa says something to Victor in Spanish, they go back and forth. I'm jealous, I wish I spoke Spanish. And Portuguese. And LOLcat. I can haz langwidge skillz?
The latest cult zinfandel makes the rounds, a Dashe Cellars Zinfandel Potter Valley McFadden Farms 'l'Enfant Terrible' 2007. Translucent medium-light ruby color. Strawberry-cherry and new-turned earth smellies, dust and berries. Lightbodied and cheerful, feathery and loose at the edges, with a lipsmackingly tart core. Charming, earthy little wine. "Strange," says Victor, "this tastes just like Moulin--Vent. Are we sure it's really zinfandel?" Joe objects that it has a core of redfruit that one might not find in Beaujolais, but Victor is not to be denied: "Not in Beaujolais necessarily, no, but in Moulin--Vent, yes!" I point out that, when it was last served blind, the crowd was evenly split between Moulin--Vent and Fleurie, with Jayson Cohen unwittingly casting the deciding vote in favor of Fleurie with his "Old Coudert?" guess.
I'm not sure how a Chteau Cos d'Estournel St. Estphe 1985 fits into the theme, but I'm happy to check it out. Smells like a pencil sharpenerlight cedar, graphite hints mingle with a gentle herbaceousness and a dash of black pepper, all suffused with muted blackcurrant redfruit. Tastes loose and velvety, medium-lightbodied claret, silky-smooth and tangily crisp. Very easy to drink.
Some sweet action follows, a Huet Vouvray 'Fin de Press' 1989. Orange-amber color, smells of rich apricot marmalade and quince jam. A little heavy-tasting, big sweetness with crisp acidity struggling a bit to give it some lift. Not much elegance, mostly sweet and broad and overdone stuff, borderline clumsy and shy on structure. It's fun but unsubtle Vouvray, a half a glass goes a long way. Marmaladey.
Vinhos Justino Henriques Filhos Madeira Verdelho 1934. Hm. Seems a bit heat-damaged. Poor storage? Nutty-smelling and sour-tasting, with searing acidity. Maybe a table cuve of 25% overstructured madeira and 75% oversweet Huet might help both out? No, bad move. Does. Not. Work. Must. Spit. Now.
Time to go! Hugs all around! See you next time! And suddenly I'm in the backseat of a cab, dreaming hazily of purple '59 Huet and supersweet inky-dark Clos Ste. Hune.
Are we home yet?
Damn straight we would.
So it is that we find ourselves, after a brief unintentional subway detour through Brooklyn, rapping at the burnished metal door of Chteauneuf-du-Joe, bottles in hand. We're joined by the unflappable Levi Dalton, the irrepressible Bradley Kane, the inscrutible Elissa, and of course our host of hosts, the Man himself, SFJoe.
To wash away the subway grit we start with a Domaine de la Ppire Muscadet Sevre etc. 'Granit de Clisson' 2005 (magnum). Smells like rainwater with a dash of lemon-lime citricity and a touch of swimming pool greenness. Tastes lean, racy and bright and oh so very easy to drink. Not deep or layered, but impressively focused and pure. Very refreshing, lovely with the snacky pistachios and salty smoked meat product. Since we're noshing on smoked meat, it's inevitable that Josh Raynold's name comes up. "The meat fairy?" asks Elissa. "Who's that?"
"He's our favorite local barbeque chef," explains Kane. "Wait, is that right? Barbeque chef?"
"Pitmaster?" suggest Joe.
"Lord of the Smoker!" I offer, which seems to fit nicely.
"And you should see him tending the smoker shirtless in striped pants!" laughs Joe. Elissa seems confused, but intrigued at this notion.
Kane's on the phone with .sasha, shouting driving directions into his handset. Joe, cringing, waves him away: "Brad, if you're going to bellow into your cellphone, can you take it elsewhere?" Kane moves across the room, all the while shouting stuff about taking the FDR, no stoplights. What's up with the cellphone-shouting thing?
In an attempt to drown him out, we've got a mini-vertical, starting with a Didier Dagueneau Blanc Fum de Pouilly 'Silex' 2002. Lightly tropical aromaticslilikoi, grapefruit, lemon, hint of green chile. Medium bodied, crisp and vivid and rather languid, gently fleshy. Tastes spicy, layered, complex, really lithe & expressive wine, all kinds of stuff going on. Great with the oysters n'morels on seaweed bread. Seaweed bread? Is that right?
The younger sibling, a Didier Dagueneau Blanc Fum de Pouilly 'Silex' 2006 is a paler straw color. There's a noticeable rattan streak mingling with the citric aromatics that wasn't present in the older wine. Bright and racy and still rather clenched, it's leaner and tighter than the '02; seems more focused but less giving at the moment. Still, lots of potential. Hold.
Here's .sasha knocking at the door, strangely intact after following Kane's directions, and here's the guest of honor himself, bustling in laden with luggage. It's been almost a decade since I last saw Victorhe's slimmer and a bit more salt-and-peppery in the hair, but the velvety baritone is the same, as is the enthusiasm for wines that push the unfashionable envelope of ripeness. He waves to the assembled geeks and sets about unpacking his wares.
While we wait, here's a Trimbach Riesling Alsace Clos Ste. Hune 1982. Medium gold color. Smells of kerosene, yellow apple, almonds and orange rind; flickery-complex aromatics. A sip, and it's a bit severe right up front, shouldering past my teeth and pushing my tongue aside. But then it relaxes a little, spreading out and settling in. The wine is broad and strong, almost viscous, with a steely acidic core. There's a nutty skin to the yellow-lampoil flavors that hints at tiredness, but the last impression is that of a strong, slightly bruised pugilist who's still quite ready to go the distance. Compelling stuff.
Kane sips at the Clos Ste. Hune, makes a face, tosses his sizeable pour right into the dump bucket, to audible gasps all around. "Oh no," says Joe, "did you really just do that?"
Kane shrugs. "Oxidized."
Joe frowns. "Not sweet, you mean.'"
"Dude, we could've gotten you a couple of sugar packets," I moan. "You could've fixed it right up!"
Here's some kind of chicken part buried under some kind of tan chunky-spicy sauce. Something called 'papillon'? Mostly pistachios? I don't quite catch it, but it sure tastes good, despite looking sort of pre-digested. To wash it down there's a Huet Vouvray le Haut-Lieu Demisec 1959. There's a light chlorine hint at first that has me worried, but it fades and turns towards aged-chenin wooliness. Quite sweet for a demisec, glyceriney and glossy-rich. Broadbeamed, sweet and muscular chenin that's just turning towards tertiary complexity. In better shape than most of the molleux '59s I've tasted, this seems to want more sleepy time, but it has a lot to recommend it right now. In fact, let me pour myself some more, just to make sure my impressions are on point. Wait, just a bit more, that'll help my appraisal.
"Good heavens," sighs Victor. "I'm embarassed to be pouring my humble country wines after such beautiful specimens." But he takes a deep breath and starts to open bottles, passing around printed leaflets in the meantime. I sneak a peek:
"Finca Sandoval at SFJoe's: An unabashed, unfettered, unscrupulous and uncouth evening of spoofulation, warm-climate, high-alcohol red wines that aren't sold at Chambers Street. Sorry."
A countercultural manifesto? Awesome! Okay then, here we go, kiddies. Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a jammy night!
First off is a Finca Sandoval Manchuela 'Salia' 2006 (45% syrah, 41% alicante bouschet, 14% garnacha). Inky purply-black color. Big fruitbowl aromaticsraspberry and plum jams, Hubba Bubba, dark licoricey streak. Tastes just like it smells, broad and rich and extravagantly fruited. The acidity is struggling a bit under the plushness of the fruit, but some roughish tannins that emerge post-middle help give it some mouthgrab. A fun wine. Where's Camblor tonight, he'd really dig this...? I return from my momentary fruit-fugue to sputter "Jeez, this is the 'light one' for early drinking? Yikes!"
"Don't forget," cautions Victor, "we're seven hundred miles south of Chteauneuf-du-Pape. We don't need to spoof to get huge ripeness."
Next is a Finca Sandoval Manchuela 'Signo' 2006 (90% bobal, 10% syrah). Inky purply-black color. Black raspberry and plum jam laced with licorice, smells boisterously ripe. Tastes rich and rough and jammy, unsubtle big red- and blackfruit supported by a firm acidic spine, this has the feel of something made in a drunken farmer's bathtub. In a good way. I find some similarity with a bigass petite sirah, but there aren't apparently too many other PS fans in attendance, because my view gains little traction amongst the assembled faithful. Still, it's rustic and ripe and purple and rough-edgedly simple--the fruit is just WHOMP right there, take it or leave it or get out of the way of the purple steamroller. I like it, but it's a bit tiring, like a St. Bernard puppy leaping and slobbering all over me.
Victor is concerned about the subdued nature of my current Aloha shirt, a calm 50s-style blue-and-tan number. "You've gone conservative," he frets. I object that this evening I'm merely sporting a classic cotton Reyn Spooner look that suits the gravity of tonight's tasting. Happily, Kane has some cellphone snaps of me at the recent Camblorfest in a loud red internationally-styled spoofy rayon version. Viewing those, VS is appeased. Keep the faith, brother.
Speaking of pictures, why does Kane keep taking snapshots of the food on his plate? It's kind of unnerving, like some weird CIA thing. The flashes are burning my retinas. What's going on? "Damn paparazzi, stop hounding me!" I snap at Kane. Elissa gently corrects me: "Paparazzo."
"Whatever. PUT THE FUCKING CAMERA AWAY, KANE," I urge gently. He ignores me completely. Flash, flash. Ow. Ow.
Here's a Finca Sandoval Manchuela 2006 (76% syrah, 13% monastrell, 12% bobal). The flagship wine, and the only one to see new wood (about 50%, according to the manifesto). Inky purply-black color. More complex aromatics than either of the first twomeaty-smoky blackberry and black raspberry notes, good dusting of savory-peppery smokiness laces through the purple-redfruit. Along the lines of a restrained Barossa shiraz, it's the most complete of the wines so far. Not for the faint of heart, but has an outsized elegance to it.
Levi shares my discomfort with the quality of the candid photography tonight. He looks at the viewscreen of Kane's camera, grimaces, "I look like a baboon." I feel like pointing out that the baboon is a noble animal, whereas I usually end up looking like the corpse of Elvis, but I'm distracted by the appearance of a Finca Sandoval Manchuela 2001. It's a deep garnet color, hint of purple at the rim. Smells oddly milky-funky; there's something not quite right here. Victor wonders if it's corked, though it doesn't quite seem like TCA to me, but definitely not the wine I remember. Frankly, I always liked this wine more than Victor ever seemed to. He seems to think it a so-so effort, but to me there was a calmness, a restraint that I haven't seen in subsequent vintages. Not that I'm not a fan of the big purple, but I think the red-blackfruit in this one said something interesting as well, in maybe not quite so shirazzy a fashion. Still, this is an off bottle, so I'll stop talking about it now.
Here's Joe's tenderloin of bison, and Victor is delighted: "Thank you, Joe, for thinking of bison!" he booms. "You've finally found a good food match for Finca Sandoval!"
The last of the dry reds is a Finca Sandoval Manchuela Cuve TNS 2006 (60% touriga nacional, 40% syrah). Inky purply-black color. Some aromatic complexity here, there's a light minty streak and a gentle African-violet florality that lends interest to the bigass fruit. In the piehole it's much in the mold of the others, broad and ripe and pornographically fruited, another bodacious mouthful. I've been vaccinated by much early exposure to Turley zins and petite sirahs, but I sense some of the more fragile geeks aren't sure what to make of a serious bigass hootie like this. Me, I just grab some bison chunks and chow down with the purple. For some reason that I'm not entirely clear on, this wine is only produced in magnums, 550 of 'em. Although our bottle isn't a magnum, it's a bottle that's been decanted from a magnum. Or something like that, it's all very complicated to my purple-soaked cerebellum.
Levi hears us talking about Kane's weird late-jeebus forays on J-Date joyously rejecting women well above his station, and exclaims, "So that's real? I read that, but I thought it was all made up stuff, it sounded too unbelievable. Who would be shallow enough to reject someone for having a crooked nose, or suspecting them of being a fake Jew? That's crazy!"
Sigh. My curse is that of CassandraI speak truth, but am not believed. In this case I've got Kane here to confirm all the details, but I know it won't be long before someone says, apropos of something else, "C'mon, that can't be true, you must've made that up!" I suppose it's my destiny, no use fighting it.
Here's the dessert syrah, a Finca Sandoval Manchuela Cuve Cecilia 2007 (70% late harvest syrah, 30% moscatel de Alejandra). Inky purply-black color, even purpler than the others, if that's possible. Seriously, you could paint a wall with this, no primer needed. Smells boisterously ripe, plum jam and blackberries laced with hot gravel. Tastes vivid and rich, very sweet and grapey-purple, like grape juice concentrate. Bright acidity and a surprisingly matte texture keep it from cloying, but it's a wacky, over-the-top wine, even in this company. It tickles me. Sweet syrah? Why not? Awesome.
There's also a Finca Sandoval Aguardiente de Orujo 2007, which is sort of a Spanish grappa. I'm no fan of grappa; to me this smells and tastes like gently floral-accented gasoline. Drink only if you need to get drunk fast fast fast.
Brad has a Mystery Red Wine. This invariably means he has some kind of axe to grind, but we're pleasantly buzzed enough to put up with whatever nonsense he's up to now. Smells ripe and blackberry-blackcurranty with some stewed tomato notes, slightly decayed, perhaps past its best days but still alive. Medium-bodied and fleshy, with rather shy acidity, it's blowsy but not ponderous, seems to be in a pretty decent place now, some tertiary development, maybe just the beginnings of cracks in the plaster, but loose and pleasant to drink. A wine that wasn't meant to go long that's gone a bit farther than it should. Seems Napa cabernet-ish to me, I guess Arns '95. (Hacienda Monasterio Ribera del Duero Crianza 1996)
Yet again, Kane seems to using his 'mystery wine' to pursue some strange grudge known only to himself: "HA!" he crows as he rips the wrapping off the bottle. "And you all said this wine was dead!"
Everyone regards him blankly. "I don't remember ever offering an opinion on this wine," says Joe.
"No, me neither," says .sasha. Victor shrugs, Levi stares, Elissa looks blank.
"I've never tasted this wine before in my life," I point out.
"Well..." sputters Brad, "you all said some other Spanish wine I sold you from around the same time was dead!"
Ah, touch.
Edmunds St. John Syrah El Dorado County Wylie-Fenaughty 2001. Smoky lean baconberry aromatics, blackberry and pepper. Medium-lightbodied and nervy, with a sinewy, taut pieholefeel. Elegant, bracing California syrah, in a very nice place. Victor makes a face, "Underripe." Joe takes exception to this, insists he go back and retaste. He does so, concedes it may be ripe after all, just not in the inky-and-purple sense. Victor may have a blind spot, as this is lean, lovely, completely ripe California syrah. I could easily down a few glasses and still want more.
Elissa says something to Victor in Spanish, they go back and forth. I'm jealous, I wish I spoke Spanish. And Portuguese. And LOLcat. I can haz langwidge skillz?
The latest cult zinfandel makes the rounds, a Dashe Cellars Zinfandel Potter Valley McFadden Farms 'l'Enfant Terrible' 2007. Translucent medium-light ruby color. Strawberry-cherry and new-turned earth smellies, dust and berries. Lightbodied and cheerful, feathery and loose at the edges, with a lipsmackingly tart core. Charming, earthy little wine. "Strange," says Victor, "this tastes just like Moulin--Vent. Are we sure it's really zinfandel?" Joe objects that it has a core of redfruit that one might not find in Beaujolais, but Victor is not to be denied: "Not in Beaujolais necessarily, no, but in Moulin--Vent, yes!" I point out that, when it was last served blind, the crowd was evenly split between Moulin--Vent and Fleurie, with Jayson Cohen unwittingly casting the deciding vote in favor of Fleurie with his "Old Coudert?" guess.
I'm not sure how a Chteau Cos d'Estournel St. Estphe 1985 fits into the theme, but I'm happy to check it out. Smells like a pencil sharpenerlight cedar, graphite hints mingle with a gentle herbaceousness and a dash of black pepper, all suffused with muted blackcurrant redfruit. Tastes loose and velvety, medium-lightbodied claret, silky-smooth and tangily crisp. Very easy to drink.
Some sweet action follows, a Huet Vouvray 'Fin de Press' 1989. Orange-amber color, smells of rich apricot marmalade and quince jam. A little heavy-tasting, big sweetness with crisp acidity struggling a bit to give it some lift. Not much elegance, mostly sweet and broad and overdone stuff, borderline clumsy and shy on structure. It's fun but unsubtle Vouvray, a half a glass goes a long way. Marmaladey.
Vinhos Justino Henriques Filhos Madeira Verdelho 1934. Hm. Seems a bit heat-damaged. Poor storage? Nutty-smelling and sour-tasting, with searing acidity. Maybe a table cuve of 25% overstructured madeira and 75% oversweet Huet might help both out? No, bad move. Does. Not. Work. Must. Spit. Now.
Time to go! Hugs all around! See you next time! And suddenly I'm in the backseat of a cab, dreaming hazily of purple '59 Huet and supersweet inky-dark Clos Ste. Hune.
Are we home yet?
