TN: This and that . . .

[Florida Jim]

One evening I opened a 2001 Joseph Phelps, Syrah; I have found the regular cabernets from this house to be one of the few CA cabs. worth keeping (well, maybe a few more but Phelps has done me well through the years . . .). I have no use for the Insignia proprietary blend from Phelps but then, I can’t afford them anyway.

Well this is lousy; it’s full of chocolate covered blueberries and hasn’t the faintest resemblance to anything that I enjoy about syrah; no pepper, no olive, no complexity, nothing worth having unless your neighbor is coming over and she loves milk shakes.

This saddens me; I know its Napa and I know they are trying for the mass market but I have become intensely interested in CA syrah of late and this is just a bad example, IMO.

Another night we tried the 2006 Anselmi, San Vincenzo, a pretty little blend from the Soave region. It’s pleasant if not all that arresting and it seems to do well with food. But it really isn’t making me wish for more – which other Anselmi wines do.

Then there was a bottle of 2006 Perrin, Côtes du Rhône, Reserve which cost all of $10 and was so charming and graceful with fresh swordfish that I vowed to remember the pairing. And I’ve got a bottle of their ’05 CdR, Villages for another time – I’m looking forward to that.

A bottle of 2005 Sebastiani, Chardonnay was of little merit; more about vanilla and over-ripe fruit than about anything to do with soil and sun.

The 2006 Arigoles Costamolino, Vermentino is utterly crystalline; it dances in the mouth and barely pays any homage to resin on the nose (I’ve found more than a few vermentino a little too resinous for me). $11 couldn’t be better spent.

A 2005 Bossard, Muscadet Garnite smelled like bleach (and not in a good way) for the first hour it was open; then it got back to being its mineral infused, diamond drill-bit, laser-like self but I don’t think I’ll open another of these for a decade or so. Not my best experience with it.

And these days, it seems I can’t write notes without another comment (and another bottle) of the 2002 Luneau-Papin, Muscadet, Semper-Ecelsior which is just about the best damn white wine I have tasted (repeatedly) over the last year. To think that $20 buys this when, at ten times the tariff, most white Burgundy underachieves. Truly, a special wine.

‘Not taking notes the way I used to, just writing impressions after the fact.

‘So sorry . . .

Best, Jim