Tried three wines the other night and they were all fabulous and different.
The Muga Rioja 2005 Especial was awesome. A red wine that was slow to open up, but after and hour or two of air time, it was elegant and smooth and rich and fruity and smokey, but not as smokey as the last wine. As nice as it was, it needs more years in the bottle to develop more complexity of flavors. It was the best with the smoked pork ribs. Retail is about 50.
The Selvanova Aglianico from southern Italy was the steal of the night at $19.99 a bottle. This wine has a little cult following at the store, but I admit, I hadn't tasted it in a long time. Don't worry, I bought everything the wholesaler had left in Massachusetts. Worry, he only had 3 cases left and one of the gentlemen who tasted the wine with me the other night, took one of them. Aglianico is the best red grape in southern Italy. It yields a wine that has southern Italian fruit to compliment a red sauce dish, yet enough spice and structure to stand up to northern Italian cuisine. It was delicious with no breathing time at all, and held its flavors thru the night.
I repeat, a steal, but not much left.
Finally, Vacqueras is a town in the Rhone Valley of France the until a change in the wine laws could only be labeled as Cotes du Rhone Villages. This 2007 vintage Vacqueras at $29.99 is expensive for any red wine from this town, but this one is more than worth it. Unfortunately, this was a cradle robbing event. Although the wine was delicious, you know it is only gonna get better the longer you can wait and leave it alone in the cellar. How long? It was so good, I will re-evaluate it this holiday season, but I have lots. A couple of years should metamorphasize this wine from wonderful to SPECTACULAR! Wafts of dried red fruit without sweetness in combination with so much basalm notes I thought I was lumberjacking in Maine. This is the wine that answers the oft asked queston "Bob, I wanna buy a wine that is gonna taste like a hundred bucks in a few years but I dont want to spend that much, what do you have?" This is it! I just loved sipping this the entire evening, food was secondary. Wine is tooooo good.
Showing posts with label reds for the cellar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reds for the cellar. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
May 6
I should have been caught up by today, but between a glitch and a hail and a thunderstorm the conspiracy won.
Namedropping time, I had lunch with Emil den Dulk of De Toren Private Cellar of Stellenbosch in South Africa. Well lunch was in Millis, the winery is in South Africa. Everyone needs a winery on a hillside with an ocean view, yeah, I had the pleasure of visiting there back in 2008. Anyway, he was in Millis to show me the latest releases of his two top wines, Z and Fusion V.
Ahhh perfection! The Z is the lesser of the two, retails for $27.99, and emulates Right Bank Bordeaux with more Cabernet Franc in the blend. You can drink it now and you will be happy, but you should wait a few years and be very happy or a few more years and be wicked very happy. Seamless is a great word to describe the wine now. The wine is closed and you know it will get better with time or you could taste past vintages and be wowed, if you can find any. Although the wine is closed, it is so balanced that you have to work to find the tannins that are in perfect balance with fruit and alcohol. This is one of those wines that people look for that are not expensive now, but will taste very expensive in a few years of proper storage.
More perfect doesn't make sense, but the De Toren Fusion V, a Left Bank Bordeaux style blend with more Cabernet Sauvignon in the classic blend of the 5 Bordeaux grapes is more better. Love bad English. More money and more than worth it at $44.99 a bottle. Think famous named Chateaux that costs 4 times as much to deliver the same quality.
Now the problem. The winery has only been around for a dozen years. I cannot taste, nor can anyone else, older wine from them. Emil was kind enough to tell me that the first vintage has still not reached its peak. I sold a ton of the 2003 and told people to wait. Recently one of these wise customers opened a bottle of the 2003 and was thouroughly impressed, but offered his opinion that it also was still going to get better. Emil also has kindly put on accurate and informative back labels to the wine. The label tells you that the wine will age well for a decade, well I see your decade and raise it a score.
These are truly world class wines at insanely reasonable, more bad English, prices. Emil is no dummy, he will be raising prices with the next vintage.
Namedropping time, I had lunch with Emil den Dulk of De Toren Private Cellar of Stellenbosch in South Africa. Well lunch was in Millis, the winery is in South Africa. Everyone needs a winery on a hillside with an ocean view, yeah, I had the pleasure of visiting there back in 2008. Anyway, he was in Millis to show me the latest releases of his two top wines, Z and Fusion V.
Ahhh perfection! The Z is the lesser of the two, retails for $27.99, and emulates Right Bank Bordeaux with more Cabernet Franc in the blend. You can drink it now and you will be happy, but you should wait a few years and be very happy or a few more years and be wicked very happy. Seamless is a great word to describe the wine now. The wine is closed and you know it will get better with time or you could taste past vintages and be wowed, if you can find any. Although the wine is closed, it is so balanced that you have to work to find the tannins that are in perfect balance with fruit and alcohol. This is one of those wines that people look for that are not expensive now, but will taste very expensive in a few years of proper storage.
More perfect doesn't make sense, but the De Toren Fusion V, a Left Bank Bordeaux style blend with more Cabernet Sauvignon in the classic blend of the 5 Bordeaux grapes is more better. Love bad English. More money and more than worth it at $44.99 a bottle. Think famous named Chateaux that costs 4 times as much to deliver the same quality.
Now the problem. The winery has only been around for a dozen years. I cannot taste, nor can anyone else, older wine from them. Emil was kind enough to tell me that the first vintage has still not reached its peak. I sold a ton of the 2003 and told people to wait. Recently one of these wise customers opened a bottle of the 2003 and was thouroughly impressed, but offered his opinion that it also was still going to get better. Emil also has kindly put on accurate and informative back labels to the wine. The label tells you that the wine will age well for a decade, well I see your decade and raise it a score.
These are truly world class wines at insanely reasonable, more bad English, prices. Emil is no dummy, he will be raising prices with the next vintage.
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