Mendelson Pinot Noir

Mendelson Wines
Pinot Noir
Sleepy Hollow Vineyard
Santa Lucia Highlands
Napa, California, U.S.A.
2007
14.5%
$34.29 [$48.99] -- Twin Liquors, Bee Cave, TX

Color: Dark brick
Nose: Stewed plum, wet gravel, sour sage cigarettes, heat
Body: Full
Front: Fruit soup, orange
Middle: Plum licorice, espresso grounds
Back: Thyme, a little heat, burned popcorn
Burns clean?: Yes
Cap: Cork

I'm going to go buy another bottle of this wine, because it has a combination of characteristics that I find absolutely enchanting. The heat on the nose and in the glass is a little unfortunate, especially five years out, but it's not overwhelming. Oddly, there aren't many reviews of this wine, perhaps because the maker is best known for dessert wines. Then again, maybe he just pissed everybody off.

Either way, here's the thing: this tastes almost exactly like two other high-tone Pinots I've had, that had a little age on 'em. Stewed fruit, then some earthy or beefy or smoky secondary flavors, and a burned popcorn type of ending. And the flavor profile didn't evolve in any of these cases either: an hour later, they basically tasted the same as after 15 minutes. Two hours, same deal: still delicious, but still the same flavors in the same structure.

This puts me in a quandary. One of the things I love about wine as opposed to, say, Dr. PepperTM, is that it sometimes evolves as it opens. A single wine can be delicious in five or twelve different ways over the course of a few hours. Then again, I love Dr. PepperTM! And this tastes a lot like it.

So I'm going to get another bottle, as I said. And I'm going to be flexible about what I imagine the unfolding of a wine that I enjoy might be like. At $35, I think this is an absolute steal in Pinot, unless you hate sour sage cigarettes.

Siduri Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir

Siduri Wines
Santa Lucia Highlands
Pinot Noir
Central Coast
Santa Rosa, California, U.S.A.
2008
14.1%
$29.98 -- Twin Liquors, Austin, TX

Color: Medium garnet
Nose: Strawberry jam, cherry, a little herb
Body: Medium
Front: Strawberry-cherry cola
Middle: Raspberry, banana
Back: A little sage, soft tannins
Burns clean?: Yes
Cap: Screwcap

This is a tasty, food-friendly, almost too-easy-drinking wine. It's rich, but not terrifically complex or deep or long on the palate. It was splendid paired with roasted chicken and a little avocado and tomato salad. Again, perhaps a tad overpriced for what you get, as is often the case with Pinot--I might try a circa-$20 Central Otago wine before this one, in the future. I don't think this is made to age particularly long, given the tannin structure, but it wouldn't hurt to wait another year, I reckon, before drinking it.

Lange Reserve Pinot Noir

Lange Winery

Pinot Noir

Reserve
Willamette Valley
Dundee, Oregon, U.S.A.
2008
13.5%
$30.99 -- Twin Liquors, Austin, TX

Color: Medium reddish purple
Nose: Cherry candy, a hint of earth and smoke, a spritz of bug spray

Body: Medium
Front: Cherry

Middle: A hint of cassis, cinnamon, spiciness

Back: Cherry again, creamy this time

Burns clean?: Yes

Cap: Cork

This is a tremendously elegant wine--so elegant that I think I didn't really notice much flavor in the tail end of it. It's smooth and balanced, and perhaps in a year or two might become more intense. But at the moment, this is exactly the sort of bottle that has me scratching my head at Pinot Noir prices. For my palate, it's not as interesting as the Innocent Bystander, yet costs twice as much. Had I bought two bottles of this (as I did with the Pessagno), I'd put the other in the closet and wait for a couple of years before opening it. I'm not sure time does heal all things, but I reckon in this case it can't hurt.

After a long hiatus thanks to work, Asmodeus is BACK. I'd have dropped four wines on you today instead of three, if only the Falanghina hadn't been maderized. Believe it: four years may be too long for Falanghina.

Angela Pinot Noir

Clawson Creek
Angela
Pinot Noir
Willamette Valley
Carlton, Oregon, U.S.A.
2008
13%
$29.98 -- Costco, Austin, TX

Color: Medium garnet
Nose: Strawberry jam, cherry
Body: Medium
Front: Raspberry
Middle: Strawberry-cherry cola
Back: A little Slim Jim, soft tannins
Burns clean?: Very
Cap: Cork

The taste of this wine reminds me a bit of the Innocent Bystander Pinot Noir. It's bright, but not just fruity, with a couple of layers, and has a lovely texture. The price is, under the circumstances, a little shocking even at Costco (though after reading the hype about this wine, I'm curious why it is available at Costco; perhaps there was a large harvest in 2008).

But it certainly goes well with food -- grilled lamb chops, roasted beets, and sauteed beet greens with onions, dried red pepper, and garlic. After it was open three hours, it gained weight and interest, particularly when paired with some late-night sorpressata. And it comes in a gigantic bottle with a huge punt, so you can wear it on your head when you are finished drinking it.

Meiomi Pinot Noir

Belle Glos Wines
Pinot Noir (Meiomi)
Sonoma, Monterey, and Santa Barbara Counties
Rutherford, California, USA
2008
13.9%
$18.00 -- Costco, Austin, TX

Color: Medium purpley red
Nose: Cherry, cranberry, bread pudding
Body: Medium to light
Front: Cherry
Middle: Baking spices, cranberry
Back: Strawberry, caramel
Burns clean?: Yes
Cap: Screwcap

Until this had been open for half an hour, it was hot, acidic, and acetoney. So beware: it's a "cheap" pinot, but it's also not. It's been open now for six hours, and it's rich, layered, and fascinating. The mouthfeel is silky; it lunges into you like a Gerard Manley Hopkins stanza.

Most importantly, perhaps, it's good with food. I made a chicken and chorizo dish, with artichoke hearts, red onions, garlic, and red peppers. I knew I'd need something red, and a with little spice to go with it, but I wasn't sure what to pair with it and didn't feel like a syrah. So I tried a new edition of an old favorite, the 2007 Caravan (about which more in a moment) and this pinot.

At first, it was an even split. The Caravan brought out the tomato and the artichoke, which was delightful, and asserted its personality, too. But eventually, the Meiomi emerged triumphant; after it had opened up, chocolatey, bready, and cinnamony notes sang in combination with the paprika, chorizo, and caramelized elements of the dish. The management of the oak on this wine will please many, and the fruit is vibrant without getting bubble-gummy or lick-the-envelopey. Try it with pickles.

Back to the Caravan. This is one of my favorite wines. But I can't help but note a minor, yet important change to the back label. They used to credit the quotation there this way: "Adapted from Rumi"; now, it's more definitive: "The Rubiayat by Omar Khayyam." Both of these may be true, sort of.

Why sort of? Because Rumi came after Khayyam, and thus may have borrowed from him, or transformed him, or indeed, may not have, and the original attribution might have been pure fantasy. And yet, only sort of, because, fantasy or no, in this attempt to correct the "record"--an attempt which I would argue is out of touch with the Sufic mode of this ghazal--the labelists spelled "Rubaiyat" wrong. In the abstract, a wrong spelling means little. In the attempt to purify, it reminds us of the importance of imbalance over perfection: of passion and meaningfulness, over integrity. Look at the Meiomi: grapes from three different counties! But passion makes them sing harmoniously. Why credit and quote, Caravan, when you could sing it yourself?

That said, I hope that the Wappo tribe, from whose language "Meiomi" is taken, is getting some kickbacks on the profits from this wine, which I suspect to be the broad-market bottle from Belle Glos.

V. Sattui Pinot Noir

V. Sattui Winery
Los Carneros
Pinot Noir
Napa Valley
St. Helena, California, USA
2007
13.8%
$28.00 -- Sattui Winery, St. Helena, CA

Color: Medium garnet
Nose: Cherry, cranberry, mesquite smoke
Body: Medium
Front: Cherry
Middle: Orange, roasted fig
Back: Black cherry, soft tannins, a little heat
Burns clean?: Yes
Cap: Cork

Another delightful bottle from Sattui. This is an assertive wine, with the distinctive profile of a Carneros Pinot; there is a balance between fruit and smoke (sometimes earth, in other Carneros Pinots) that I enjoy. It's smooth, but not silky; with another year or two in the bottle, I think, it has a chance to match up its structure with its mouthfeel. Great with salad--so that is a plus!

Stoller Pinot Noir

Stoller Vineyards
Pinot Noir
JV Estate
Dundee Hills
Dayton, Oregon, USA
2007
13.3%
$17.99 -- Costco, Austin, TX

Color: Medium strawberry with a touch of peach
Nose: Cranberries, cherries, bacon, cinnamon
Body: Medium
Front: Cherry
Middle: Peach, cotton candy
Back: Sage, graphite
Burns clean?: Yes
Cap: Screwcap

In a world of $45 crap Pinots, this is a delight to find. A hint of earthy stank on the nose, and another hint in the glass, but plenty of fruit (the cotton candyish flavor isn't overbearing) and a light, not cloying body. Bring it! This will be perfect with the red pepper and garlic, sausage, and farfalle I'm making tonight, but it'll be even better, I'd guess, with fish.

{Note, from 2013: Still magnificent. Doubtless better.}

Morot Beaune Cent-Vignes 1er Cru

Albert Morot
Beaune Cent-Vignes
1er Cru
Pinot Noir
Beaune, France
2007
13%
$50.00 -- Austin Wine Merchant, Austin, TX

Color: Light to medium strawberry
Nose: Cherry, peat, tobacco
Body: Full
Front: Strawberry
Middle: Cherry, a hint of cassis
Back: A touch of oak, sage
Burns clean?: Yes
Cap: Cork

I went to a wine shop today, The Austin Wine Merchant, that has been much-recommended to me. They've got a particularly strong selection of French and Italian wines; I saw many old favorites. And they're knowledgeable and not pushy, which I like. Under the circumstances, I approached helpful Dan about a Pinot Noir, and he led me to this one.

While my favorite wine of last year was a Burgundy, it was an exception--I just glanced back through most of my accounts of them, and they're eh. So-so. Okay. Part of the problem is that these wines close down after a year or so in bottle, and don't reemerge for awhile. When they do, they're often way, way better than before. It's not quite a shell game, but it is an investment-driven style: you have to find something young, know it has promise, buy some bottles, and wait. Repeat annually. Six or seven years later, you will have a non-stop supply of awesome wine. In the meantime, drink Zinfandel. Also pray that none of your choices are stinkers, and follow Cellartracker to see how they're drinking.

This wine, I think, is going to be delicious ten years from now. It is balanced, if subtle, and there's enough fruit and enough other interesting flavors to entertain. The tannins are in effect, but before they hit, the wine is very smooth.

Note: After leaving half the bottle overnight (vacuvin), the nose is much richer and more interesting, and the palate is a little more elaborate. So--the future of this one looks good, I think!

Hamilton Russell Pinot Noir

Hamilton Russell Vineyards
Pinot Noir
Hemel-en-Aarde Valley
Walker Bay
Hermanus, S. Africa
2008
13.3%
$25.99 -- Twin Liquors, Austin, TX

Color: Medium garnet
Nose: Cherry cola, venison, mint, stewed orange
Body: Medium
Front: Dried cranberry, mint
Middle: Tart but creamy fizziness, lemon
Back: Olive, charred oak, tar
Burns clean?: Yes
Cap: Cork

This is a damn strange wine, as the flavor descriptions above perhaps suggest. It's smoky, earthy, minty--loaded with personality. This is not a crowd-pleaser, though it would be really fun to see what a large group of not-everyday wine drinkers would make of it. I like it a lot. It has the lightness of body and the intensity of flavor of really good Pinot. The smokiness, a sort of minty smokiness, if that makes any kind of sense, is something I've experienced in South African reds before, so I suspect it has something to do with either terroir or the oak that they use. Whatever it is, this wine doesn't bore me, like so many Pinots do--if you like a little stank on it, give this a try.

Pellegrini Olivet Lane Pinot Noir

Pellegrini Family Vineyards
Olivet Lane Vineyard   
Pinot Noir
Russian River Valley
Santa Rosa, California, USA
2008
14.3%
$18.99 -- Costco, Austin, TX

Color: Light garnet
Nose: Cherry, strawberry, Slim JimTM
Body: Medium
Front: Dry cherry, orange
Middle: Smoky honeysuckle, black currant
Back: Bacon, soft tannin
Burns clean?: Yes
Cap: Cork

First off, this wine goes very well with food: tonight, a lettuce and tomato salad with a little stunning Pasolivo olive oil and balsamic, together with some Hole Foods brisket. The wine is rich, fruity but earthy, and well balanced. It's not a complete enchanter, as it's strong on the smoky flavors (doubtless a source of its partnership with the brisket) but...well--this is the second thing: Pinot Noir is hideously overpriced in the US, so to find one that is this good at a reasonable price is a delight.

Domaine Serene Yamhill Cuvée

Domaine Serene
Yamhill Cuvée
Pinot Noir
Willamette Valley
Dayton, Oregon, USA
2007
13.8%
$26.99 -- Costco, Austin, TX

Color: Medium garnet
Nose: Flowers, cinnamon, smoke
Body: Medium
Front: Dry cherry
Middle: Smoky honeysuckle
Back: Minerals, soft tannin
Burns clean?: Yes
Cap: Cork

Delightfully low in alcohol, fascinating on the palate, and good with food: it doesn't get much better. Actually, judging from the prices on the Domaine Serene website and the reports of my older wine-drinking friends, it does get a lot better, with Serene's higher-level Pinots. But this is a well-made, delicious wine at a price that's pretty good for Pinot.

This wine is available by the glass at restaurants, so give it a shot in someplace you trust before you buy a bottle--its austerity and weirdness aren't going to please all folks who like Pinot!

Wild Rock Pinot Noir

Wild Rock Wine Company
Pinot Noir
Cupid's Arrow
Central Otago
Hastings, New Zealand
2008
13.5%
$18.98 -- Wine Trader, Lake Travis, TX

Color: Medium garnet
Nose: Strawberry, fish, smoke
Body: Medium
Front: Cherry
Middle: Strawberry cola

Back: Raspberry, Skittles, no tannins to speak of
Burns clean?: Yes
Cap: Screwcap

This one reminds me a lot of the Innocent Bystander Pinot Noir. It's bright but smoky, with a couple of layers, and at a decent price point for Pinot in general. There is a little third-stage candy-esque, raspberry thing that delivers on the finish, that is endearing, and makes it easy to drink. I'm hoping it will pair well with a chicken korma this evening; the low alcohol suggests a good pairing with food. It certainly goes well with the sunset!

Innocent Bystander Pinot Noir

Innocent Bystander
Pinot Noir
Victoria
Healesville, Victoria, Australia
2008
14.1%
$14.98 -- Wine Library, Springfield, NJ

Color: Medium garnet
Nose: Cherry, meat, chocolate
Body: Medium
Front: Raspberry
Middle: Chocolate-covered cherry cola

Back: Espresso, but very soft tannins
Burns clean?: Yes
Cap: Screwcap

Undoubtedly bearing one of the grimmest wine labels ever, this wine is nonetheless a real joy, and a shock. The shock has to do with the price of entry, which is low for a Pinot these days. The flavor is delightful: not super-complex, it's no Vosne-Romanee or Amour Fou. But it's balanced, tasty, interesting enough, and elegant. A mixture of grapes from eight different vineyards, this is a testament to its winemaker. Good with grilled lamb and, surprisingly perhaps, watermelon. I'm gonna get more: this bottle, if not its label, will make many guests happy!

Pessagno Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir

Pessagno Winery
Pinot Noir
Lucia Highlands Vineyard
Santa Lucia County
Salinas, California, USA
2007
14.6%
$24.98 -- Wine Library, Springfield, NJ

Color: Medium to deep garnet
Nose: Cherry, heat, port, plum, chocolate
Body: Medium to full
Front: Cassis, orange peel
Middle: Licorice, black cherry
Back: Charcoal, with lighter fluid and attendant smoke
Burns clean?: Mostly
Cap: Cork

This is a big wine: hot, fruity, dark, heavy, and sweaty. I'd have pinned this as a good Zinfandel if I'd been tasting it blind. It's not charming, and it's not elegant. This is that friend of yours who's really good at heart but a bull in a china shop, or too loud in conversation in public, or accidentally hurts people's feelings all the time.

I had to eat some almonds with it, to calm it down a bit, and that helped thin it out and bring out some of the more meaty and herby flavors. I think I really like it; I'd put it in the category of the Hamilton Russell, inasmuch as it's an unusual set of flavors for a Pinot, and I'm really curious to see what it tastes like in a couple of years.

Now that I check for a cross-reference I see I have not reviewed the Hamilton Russell, and I think I know why: they're running out at Twin Liquors, and I don't want anyone else to get it.

The Four Graces Pinot Noir

Black Family Vineyards
Pinot Noir 
Willamette Valley
McMinnville, Oregon, USA
2007
13.5%
$25.99 -- Spec's, Austin, TX

Color: Medium strawberry
Nose: Strawberry, cherry, Spanish chorizo, black pepper, a little pig
Body: Medium
Front: Tart cherry
Middle: Creamy blackberry, peppermint, vanilla
Back: Soft tannins, thyme, mud
Burns clean?: Yes
Cap: Fake cork  

This is more like it. Interesting, multilayered, not-just-fruity Pinot Noir at a price that I might be willing to pay. I'd guess this will get more interesting still with a year or two in the bottle, as the tannins and acids play well off each other on the palate. The result is a really smooth wine, exceedingly drinkable and elegant. It actually stood up to the chili I made tonight (following Emeril Lagasse's recipe, except for certain particular ingredients that it was ridiculous to attempt to obtain). I'm going to get another bottle or two of this, for certain.

Do not be scared by the little pig. It's just a little pig.

Domaine Besson Givry 1er Cru "Le Petit Prétan"

Domaine Xavier Besson
Pinot Noir
Givry 1er Cru
Le Petit Prétan
Givry, Burgundy, France
2007
13%
$28.99 -- Spec's, Austin, TX

Color: Medium garnet
Nose: Orange sherbet, cinnamon, cream, clove?
Body: Medium
Front: Cherry
Middle: Cream, roasted almonds
Back: Chocolate shavings, soft tannins
Burns clean?: Yes
Cap: Cork

This is far too young, I would guess, to be drunk at this point. But I wanted a Pinot, I wanted a good one, and I wanted one that hadn't closed down. I also wanted one cheap--and yes, unfortunately, this is cheap for French Burgundy. Thanks, collectors. Way to ruin everything for the rest of us.

But! I didn't do this review until it had been open and sat overnight -- perhaps open for about six hours altogether. It certainly got more soft, more approachable, and richer tasting overnight; it was nicely fruity but kind of reserved yesterday, without much on the nose and a kind of hollow taste. But now (and taken with some nice sorpressata on a cool Texas evening) it's showing much more interesting flavors. Give it five more years, maybe even seven to ten, and it should be lovely.

Erath Pinot Noir Estate Selection

Erath Vineyards
Pinot Noir
Estate Selection
Dundee Hills
Dundee, Oregon, USA
2006
13.5%
$23.99 -- Costco, Austin, TX

Color: Medium strawberry with a touch of purple
Nose: Cranberries, strawberries, bacon, cinnamon
Body: Medium
Front: Cherry
Middle: Peach, pie crust
Back: Sage, graphite
Burns clean?: Yes
Cap: Cork

Give this one some air, and you will be much rewarded. It's a fascinating bottle of wine, with fruit flavors and more earthy, herby-spicy ones mixing together. When it's just opened, the nose is berryish and the palate kind of flat. But after it's been open for an hour and a half, things get much more interesting. This is the best American Pinot I've had for this price; really, for under $30.

The Erath paired well with the baked chicken, garlic, and onion I made for dinner, and with the music: Dan Cohen's brand-new release, Shhhh, a collection of laid-back, astonishingly skilled guitar instrumentals that Cohen both wrote and performs.

Note, 13 January 2010: I tried the Erath Prince Hill Pinot, also 2006, and also great. It was different; a bit more herbiness and different sorts of red fruit. It deserves its own review--someday: I think that it's really going to benefit from a few years of cellaring, which will bring up the volume on some of the earthy flavors that haunt its palate.

The Great Maderized Wine Tasting

Hello, ancient beauties.

DOWN IN MY PARENTS' BASEMENT IN WESTERN KENTUCKY are a few wine racks.  The temperature is perfect for wine storage.  For some time, there have been all sorts of interesting things down there, including a lot of white wine bottles so covered with dust that it's hard to see what they are--or were.  The oldest of them date from the Reagan Era (that's President Ronald Reagan, kids), the youngest from the middle 1990s; they span the globe in origins.

A couple of years ago my father suggested that we haul a sample of them up and taste them someday; this week, a cold winter day in Kentucky called out for a couple of good friends, a light seafood lunch, and a case of aged wine.  Today's blog entry may not have much practical use for my readers, but both of them may find it amusing.

Like white people, some white wines age well, and others don't.  But to complicate this, many white wines that are made to age are also deliberately made to taste quite unusual after a decade or so.  An open mind makes wine taste better, no matter the tendencies of the palate.  Going into the tasting, we knew that there were several possibilities: all the wines might taste the same (and awful); a few of them might have survived and be quite good; and we might be surprised by which ones were which.

Still, we did take some precautions. Many of these wines were not built to age, by any means, and none of them originally retailed for more than about $15. So we decided to order them by "guessed likelihood of not sucking" rather than from lightness to heaviness of body as is customary.  What follows are my notes on what happened, accompanied by a couple of photos to show both some of the colors of the wine and the unusual cork phenotypes that we found, ranging from white mold-covered to dirt-covered.  I was exhausted just trying to get the bottles clean enough to put on a table.

All spruced up...mostly. White mold, left; brown "dirt," right.

Monteagle Wine Cellars, Tennessee Seyval Blanc, 1990, 12.5%, Monteagle, Tennessee, USA: A mellow, deep, golden brown color, this one had a nose of burned hazelnut, apricot, and varnish.  The palate delivered old lemon peel, leather polish, and toasted acorns.  It was praised by one of the five members of the crowd, and detested by most of the others.  But in retrospect, most drinkers considered it to be in the top three of the tasting.  In this respect, a complete shock.  Also the first Tennessee wine I've ever had, and only the second Seyval.

Slaughter Leftwich Vineyards, Sauvignon Blanc, 1990, 12.5%, Austin, Texas, USA: First Texas wine I've ever tasted, too.  What a day!  A deep, clear straw color, and a nose that brought poetry from one of the assembled company: "Smells like the hill country...in a dust storm."  Do they make mango varnish?  That's what it smelled like to me; the front palate was a blast of apricot gasoline, then an eerie emptiness in the middle, and a finish of butter and oak.  If you came in on the last 5 seconds of the taste, and then left again immediately, you'd swear it was a California Chardonnay.

Sebastiani Vineyards, Eye of the Swan, Pinot Noir Blanc, 1984, 13.2%, Sonoma, California, USA: This was a piece of my parents' past, and brought smiles of recollection all around.  Yet no stories were forthcoming.  A cloudy golden brown color, this Pinor Noir blanc (meaning it spent just a little time on the skins before being bottled) was the crowd favorite for the day.  With more tannins, and also in a magnum format, it had a better chance in the basement.  Still, 25 years is a long time for what was a bottom-shelf wine at the time!  My pronouncement that it had a nose of wet dog ass mixed with Pine SolTM was mocked, but I stand by it.  Flavors of peach and oak were rapidly followed by something like kirsch-flavored paint thinner.

Cantina di Montefiascone, Est! Est!! Est!!!, Trebbiano, Malvasia, 1984, 11.5%, Montefiascone, Italy: The color of bourbon, mixed with cloudy river water.  The nose?  Sherry, all the way.  If you were a pirate, you could say from experience that this wine tastes like a bad oyster served in a moldy rag.

Federico Paternina, Blanco Seco, Viura (probably), 1988, 11%, Ollauri, Spain: Though white wines have to have a splendid balance of acidity and other things to age well, this one testifies that color doesn't work by the same principles; it had a beautiful, rich golden hue.  The nose, however, smelled like nothing more than spoiled milk (really, it's extraordinary to think such an odor could have been produced by fruit, but some kinds of education are not edifying).  The palate was of pears preserved in acetone. "Here's to temperance," my father pronounced, upon tasting it.

Rutherford Hill Winery, Napa Valley Chardonnay, 1989, 13%, Rutherford, California, USA: I love Rutherford Hill wines, as I've testified elsewhere on this blog.  This one was the best of the bunch, to my taste, but universally hated by my companions.  Its color was a dark greenish-gold, and it had oak and butter, with an aftertaste of snow tire chains--a little radial, a little metal, a little soggy ash.  I drank half a glass.

Viña San Pedro, Gato Blanco, Sauvignon Blanc, 1991, 12%, Lontue, Chile: A hideous brownish-yellow, the nose of the Gato Blanco sported oak, nail polish remover, and roses.  Yes, roses, which didn't bode well.  The palate delivered tart, tart strawberry mineral spirits, with a bit of a novacaine effect.  Admittedly, the latter might have been a cumulative effect, by this point.

Hugh Ryman Wines, Richemont, Chardonnay Reserve, 1996, 12%, Pays D'Oc, France: A sickly bourbony color, the Richemont featured lemon peel, oyster shell, and oak on the palate, in rapid succession, until collapsing into a varnishy haze.  This one was universally despised, though we did have some hopes for it at first because of its youth (and because there are 5 more bottles of it in the basement).  The fascinatingly hideous Richemont cork is pictured here.

Louis Gisselbrecht, Gewurztraminer, Cuvee Reserve, 1988, 12.5%, Dambach-la-Ville, Alsace, France: Another lesson: whatever complex chemical stuff has to happen to keep a white wine going in the cellar in the absence of nice balancing tannins does not apply to the nose, necessarily, either.  This one had a light gold color, perhaps a little dark for a Gewurz but well within reason, and a delightful grapefruity nose.  But sadly, to quote one drinker, "It smells like Gewurz but it tastes like shit!"  Ok, it didn't actually taste like poo, but a strong front of grapefruit rapidly yielded to Testor's model glue and pine needles. One drinker pointed out that glue is not universally despised, but I think glue huffers will be disappointed that the nose on this isn't more in line with its flavor.

Bodegas Olarra, Cerro Añon, Viura, 1984, 11.5%, Logroño, Rioja, Spain: We had high hopes for this one, too, but despite an interesting medium orange gold color and a roasted pear nose, the nail polish, oak, burned hazelnut, radish, and cedar that it delivered ("Agent Orange blossoms," was my phrase at the time) got it dumped out quickly by our assembly.

What have we learned, one dump bucket-full of wine and ten empty bottles and broken corks later?  First, that the variety of bad-tasting things is nearly boundless.  Second, that wine's individuality is hard even for long-term, unbalanced chemical processes to suppress.  Third, that when you do a maderized wine tasting, you should have on hand at least two bottles of really good stuff, and something pickled, to clear palates!

Domaine Jean Grivot Nuits-St-Georges

Domaine Jean Grivot
"Les Boudots"
Pinot Noir
1er Cru
Nuits-Saint-Georges
Vosne-Romanée, France
2001
13%
$40.99 [$63.99] -- Twin Liquors, Austin, TX

Color: Medium, smoky strawberry peach
Nose: Strawberry, grilled ribeye, ...
Body: Medium
Front: Sour cherry
Middle: Broccoli, pencil lead
Back: Substantial tannins, raspberry
Burns clean?: Yes
Cap: Cork

The flavor description above is utterly phantasmic.  This wine evolved in fascinating ways over the course of about five hours.  I didn't decant it; just left it in the bottle, and started drinking it after it had been open about two hours.  At two hours it was spicy and meaty; at four hours it was passive and graphitic; who knows what it will be like five minutes after I hit "Publish Post."

I got this puppy on sale, and at the price I got it for, it's divine.  Given how long it's been open and how the flavors are still roiling around, I'd have to guess it can age for much longer; so it may eventually be worthy of the top price for it. Usually I don't rank things against each other, but at this price, I think it's important to note that I enjoyed the Pieure Roch more than this from a complexity and general "what the hell is going on in this bottle?!" standpoint.

Note: Day 2 on this wine; open a total of 9-10 hours: roasted fig, olives, cranberry, thyme.  Ferreal.  This thing will age for some time; like, 5-10 more years.

Rex Hill Reserve Pinot Noir

Rex Hill Vineyards
Pinot Noir
Reserve
Newburg, Oregon, USA2005
13.8%
$34.99 -- Austin, TX

Color: Medium garnet
Nose: Cherries, smoke
Body: Full
Front: Red currants, cherries
Middle: Plums, cedar, licorice
Back: Steel, tar
Burns clean?: Yes
Cap: Cork

This is an intense webfoot Pinot. The fruit is strong, yet there are a bunch of non-fruity flavors lurking all around the dark corners of this one. It's no Vosne-Romanee, but it's got some complexity on its side.

I'm sitting by a lovely fire and listening to Lily Allen and it's getting to be about perfect relaxation, taken with this wine. This would pair well with a lot of different foods, but I'd think fish, chicken pot pie, and garbanzos (done not too spicily) in particular.