WTN: Two from last weekend

[Brad Ballinger]

Marcia and I stole a weekend out of town and rented a cabin in North Central Minnesota. We cooked in, even though there were two restaurants in the area I wanted to try. Cooking in was a bit more relxed though.

1999 Luigi Bosca Cabernet Sauvignon, Maipu-Mendoza. This wine was a present from the GM of the Latin American Business Unit of the company I work for. It was also the best wine from South America I've ever had. One could take that comment as "not saying that much," but that would take away from the wine. This wine was more thanjust forward fruit. Actually, it was a little backward at first, and needed about 1.5 hours of air time to open up and round out. There was a nice blackcurrant quality accented with some tobacco, herbs, and even a leathery touch. Texturally, there were ripe and fairly firm tannins. These dominated in the early stages. But, as I said, more fruit was coaxed out over time. Finished rich and lush.

2000 William Fevre Chablis Montmains Premier Cru. I was explaining to my wife how a lot of people could taste this wine next to an oaky, buttery style of chardonnay and not know that they were the same grape. I had no sooner finished when my wife commented "I don't think I like chardonnay." Had it been a bottle of the oak juice we were drinking, I would've taken her right there on the table. But we were drinking a very good chardonnay. Well, on the bright side she's learning what she likes and what she doesn't. This wine was my style of chardonnay. It was steely, flintly, chalky, and full of other minerals. But there was also a lemony, tart apple, and faint pear fruit component to temper the rockiness. Yet, it was a mineral first, fruit second style of wine. And a welcome departure from a producer who in the former generation seemed to have a love affair with oak. This crisp and clean finish seemed to go on forever, leaving a chalky, lemon pith bitterness in a good way.

[grandcru]

Brad, no sign of the Fevre shutting down, as has been noticed with many '00 Chabs? Yours sounded like it was firing on all cylinders.

[Brad Ballinger]

Kriss,

Good to see you here. Didn't know you posted here.

To answer your question, I don't really think this wine was shut or shutting down at all. But I need to couch that by saying it has been my first experience with Fevre under the son's winemaking.

A different way to respond, though, is that there really weren't any "mature" elements in the wine yet.