Featured Wines - December 2011

With Casa Silva’s 2009 Angostura Gran Reserva Merlot, Winemaker Mario Geise shows that he is just as adept with Merlot as he is with the estate’s iconic Carmenère. Fresh berries, cassis, wood smoke and spice all come to fore to create a feast for the nose as well as the palate. Medium to full-bodied, this balanced, complex Merlot exhibits considerable polish and panache. As is the case with Geise’s renowned Carmenère, his Gran Reserva Merlot strikes a perfect chord, combining flavor and finesse.

Made from vines averaging more than 50 years of age, it would be hard to find a more polished and intense Cabernet. “Dense, rich, intense, elegant, and impressively endowed, it would be difficult to find a California Cabernet for under $50 that competes with this beauty,” are Robert Parker’s salient words about this wine, and to that we add a simple Amen! Intense blackberry, crème de cassis, violet, and cigar box scents remind us of just how good prime Cabernet Sauvignon can be from an artist such as Kevin Mitchell.

The 2010 Massone Masera Gavi is the latest in a string of highly successful wines from Stefano Massone and his Masera Vineyard. Massone’s Gavi offers a refreshing array of delicate scents (most notably of grape, pear, and fresh squeezed lime) while threading the magical line on the palate between soft succulence and refreshing crispness. In the mouth, the flavor of soft fruit, crushed flowers, minerals, and lemon oil meld with a bright acidity that carries through to the wine’s long, pleasingly dry finish.

In conjunction with the exceptional 2008 vintage, Domaine du Chardonnay has produced an eye catching, ripe, round, and easy to drink wine. The 2008 Domaine du Chardonnay sports a bright golden glow and is imbued with a tantalizing aroma of minerals, fresh picked apples, dried apricots, and a pleasant hint of sea spray. Fresh but not acidic, ripe but not over the top, Domaine du Chardonnay has once again fashioned an enjoyable, sophisticated Chablis in 2008 that should drink well now through 2013.

In the 2010 Terre Vineate, the Dubini family has again fashioned a dry, captivating wine of grace, elegance, and distinction. Soft, savory scents of wildflowers and dried honey emanate from the straw colored Terre Vineate. Moreover, all of this lovely Orvieto’s olfactory goodness follows through on the palate. Palazzone’s Orvieto Classico, like the vaulted town of Orvieto itself, appears timeless – a cross between the ancient and the eternal. Few wines can transport us to Italy quite the way Palazzone’s Orvieto does.

The 2009 Plaisir d’Eulalie Minervois is nothing short of a tour de force in winemaking for Languedoc, a testament to Isabelle Coustal’s skills and the magical 2009 vintage. The 2009 is the finest Plaisir d’Eulalie made to date, and we thought the 2007 was hot stuff. Aromas of ripe Bing cherries, black fruits, thyme, violets, and dried Provencal flowers dazzle the nose. Better still, the wine’s captivating bouquet folds seamlessly into the savor of the wine, before welling up in a gush of textured flavors that just won’t quit.

The 2008 Bouchard Beaune du Château Premier Cru is one of the most enjoyable reds we have tasted from Burgundy’s fabled Côte de Beaune in a long, long time. This Burgundy offers up a perfume of ripe red fruits, peat, graphite, deft touches of hickory nut, wood smoke and Asian spices. Layered, penetrating and textured flavors add silky depth. And on the finish, the wine’s pleasantly smooth, spicy exit, replete with just the right touch of oak, made us all beg for more of this delightful Premier Cru from Bouchard.