Featured Wines - May 2000

Produced from the two finest clones of the Syrah varietal, Hermitage and Shiraz, the 1997 Sobon Syrah is rich and luxurious. It has the classic aromas of the varietals, deep black fruits, herb and bark. Yet, the wine’s flavors are rich and silky, owing no doubt to the addition of small quantities of Viognier and other Rhone varietals, as is the custom in the Rhone’s most compelling appellation, Cote Rotie. Although this wine contains a good bit ...

Like the "singing cicadas" that Pabiot’s Pouilly Fume is names after (Les Chantebines means singing cicadas in the local dialect), this estate’s wine seems to sing from the glass. It combines floral, fruity and herbal tones that carry through on the palate. Well balanced and full-bodied, it exhibits all the flinty, citrus, freshly mown grass characteristics that have earned Pouilly Fume its place among the world’s most distinctive wines....

A distinctive, medium-bodied wine, the 1998 Buckeley’s Cabernet-Merlot combines all of the scent and savor of Australia in a Bordeaux format. Sporting a ruby claret-like robe, soft succulent scents of blackberry, chocolate, plum, spice and eucalyptus well from the glass. Well-integrated fruit, oak, nutmeg and spicy berry flavors make for good, old-fashioned drinking from start to finish. The addition of Merlot in the Buckeley’s has decidedly tame...

"Elegant and lovely" was how one taster described the 1998 Domaine de la Collonge Pouilly Fuisse. "Liquid minerals with beguiling floral tones" was another retort. Essentially, this Noblet Pouilly Fuisse could be the poster child for the wine of this famous appellation. Indeed, Gilles Noblet has captured all of the supreme elegance and freshness, as well as the ethereal quality, for which Pouilly Fuisse is most revered. In addition, his wine is i...