WTN: Tall, skinny bottles

[Brad Ballinger]

Thai takeout with wine-living friends the other night. . .

2004 St. Innocent Pinot Blanc, Freedom Hill Vineyard, Willamette Valley. Huge thumbs up to this wine. 25% is fermented in oak, the rest in stainless steel. The pinot blanc grape can be very acidic, so some oak to tame it isn't tantamount to high treason. This wine showed tremendous balance. Nose shows flroal, spice, lemons, touch of smoke. In the mouth there is richness of fruit pierced with a laser beam of acidity. It is wonderfully clean. It faired better with the lighter Thai dishes and had trouble battling the red curry. This would also be great on its own.

2002 Marcel Deiss Grasberg, Alsace. This wine is mostly riesling with some pinot gris and (I believe) gewurztraminer. The nose is all diesel-ish riesling. My preference for next time will be to have this wine sit in decanter for a period. However, doing so for too long, I'm afraid, might cause this wine to lose its edge -- and this particular vintage's version doesn't have that much edge to lose. These Deiss wines are trending toward fuller body, and are losing some of the acid-driven structure of earlier vintages. In my opinion. There is a rich minerality to add complexity to the flavor profile. But the textural elements seem to be less a part of the picture than they should be.