Featured Wines - January 2013

Bright and radiant like the Campanian sun, FiaGre offers a thoroughly captivating bouquet, which is as alluring as the scent of the sea and as fresh as a splash of sea spray. Add in hints of acacia flower, clove, and quince and it will be difficult to take your nose out of a glass of FiaGre. Yet, the best is yet to come. Caggiano’s 2011 FiaGre explodes in the mouth with the brisk flavors we found so mesmerizing in its bouquet. Clean, long flavors fill the mouth and tingle on the tongue, before exiting with a flourish.

Losada Vinos de Finca has hit a homerun with the 2011 El Pájaro Rojo, a deeply-colored, polished, and sophisticated 100% Mencia wine from old vines. Redolent with beautiful and captivating scents of black fruits and exotic spices, it ingratiates the palate with a supremely suave texture and plenty of ripe, unctuous flavors. Expect deep rich fruit, subtle spice tones, and the most supple mouth feel imaginable in a young red wine. From start to finish, winemaker Amancio Fernández did everything right with this offering.

Jerome Quiot consistently makes hedonistic red and white Châteauneuf-du-Pape, but his 2009 Domaine du Vieux Lazaret may be his estate’s most seductive offering to date. From the wine’s dense ruby and purple color emerges savory scents of ripe black cherry, raspberry, and Asian spices. On the palate, the wine’s full rich fruit, fleshy body, and long lingering flavors are artfully framed by ripe tannins. To Quiot’s credit, he has captured the finest attributes of the superb 2009 vintage in this fleshy, full-bodied offering.

The 2009 La Cantilène eclipses even the outstanding 2008 and all other wines from Minervois that we have ever tasted. For starters, the wine’s complex, expressive bouquet soars from the glass, resplendent with the scents of ripe berries and black fruits, wild herbs, and violet flowers. Even more captivating in the 2009 La Cantilène are the layers of pure fruit and herb infused flavors. Although still quite young, this wine is a joy to drink now; however, it should mature beautifully for up to a decade or more.

From estate vineyards located at nearly 1,600 feet, the 2010 Anayón Chardonnay is imbued with a bright yellow robe and an intense nose of fresh tropical fruits in the form of banana, pineapple and passion fruit combined with deft touches of vanilla and wood smoke. This elegant and full-bodied wine’s expressive bouquet carries through on the palate with explosive fruit flavors, vanilla, spice, pinpoint minerality, and just the right touch of oak to make a perfectly balanced package.

The 2011 Errazuriz Estate Reserva Carmenère embodies the winery’s elegant, complex style of winemaking. This youthful Carmenère offers an eye catching ruby/violet robe and a dazzling aromatic intensity. Scents of ripe blackberry, currant, and dark chocolate mingle with hints of wood smoke, wild herbs, and black pepper. On the palate, layers of velvety berry flavors grace the palate before politely exiting in a flurry of smooth tannins and soft touches of herb and spice that make the thirsty throat plead for more.

Pierre Delatour’s 2011 Colombard Chardonnay resonates with all of the charm and up-front appeal one has come to expect from the crowd pleasing white wines of Côtes de Gascogne. Delatour’s intense aromatic fireworks set the table for this wine’s suave round fruit and remarkable freshness. Crisp apple, pear, and grapefruit flavor come to fore on the palate and are almost immediately followed by a subtle minerality and crisp, racy citrus tones that cleanse the palate and make the eager gullet beg for more.