Featured Wines - February 2003

The 2001 Lusco Rias Baixas Albarino is a textbook example of both the famed Albarino varietal and the Rias Baixas, Spain's most illustrious white wine region. The Lusco recalls scents of early spring, when the first breathe of warm air begins to dispel winter's chill and the fresh, heaven scent of forsythia bursts forth to color the still brown land and tantalize the nose with the aroma of the annual awakening. Indeed, the bouquet of this beguili...

A harmonious, hedonistic fruit bomb, the 2001 Bodegas Agapito Carchelo offers up copious quantities of black fruits, sandalwood, and a certain vinosity ' the likes of which one rarely sees any longer in most contemporary wines. Eminently drinkable and utterly pleasing, it is hard to imagine a wine giving the imbiber more pure pleasure for the money than the 2001 Carchelo. Deep in color, long on flavor, and smooth as silk in the finish, it is easy...

The 2000 Murphy-Goode Reserve Fume is a substantial Sauvignon Blanc, amply endowed with both flavor and stature, thanks to a high percentage of the highly charged Musque clone of Sauvignon Blanc. Rich in color and highly aromatic, this Fume offers up copious quantities of melon, passion fruit, pineapple, and lush spicy oak in its hedonistic bouquet. Equally plush and rich on the palate, this full-bodied Sauvignon has the weight and feel of a grea...

Reticent at first sniff, the 2000 Carmen Cabernet Sauvignon explodes after fifteen or twenty minutes open, revealing a seductive potpourri of blackberry, wild blueberry, bramble and eucalyptus. In the mouth, this wine continues to work its charm, coating the palate with rich textured fruit that is redolent with blackberry and cassis, smoke and jam. Each sip begs to be savored, pleading the gullet not to swallow and end the interlude, but alas' th...