Wine List

Wine Advocate

90

Tenuta San Guido’s 2008 Guidalberto is a very pretty wine laced with mineral-infused dark fruit. This is a decidedly smaller scaled, lithe Guidalberto that impresses for its overall balance and finesse. The structure of the 2006 and the exuberance of the 2007 are missing, but the 2008 offers superb drinkability and pleasure today and over the next few years. Dried flowers, licorice and new leather add the final nuances of complexity on the finish. The 2008 Guidalberto is Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Most of the fruit comes from vineyards that are separate from those used for Sassicaia, although Guidalberto always includes some barrels that don’t make it into the top wine. Anticipated maturity: 2010-2015. (Antonio Galloni)

Rating

95

Release Price

$45

Drink Date

2005 - 2019

Reviewed by

Robert M. Parker, Jr.

Issue Date

26th Apr 2004

Source

152, The Wine Advocate

The flagship offering, the 2001 Numanthia, is fashioned from a 70-100 year old Tinta de Toro vineyard planted at a 2300 foot elevation. After a 28 day maceration, the wine undergoes malolactic in barrel, is aged 19 months in new French oak, and is bottled without fining or filtration. The spectacular, opaque purple-colored 2001 offers an explosive nose of melted licorice, barbecue smoke, blackberries, creme de cassis, camphor, and graphite. Full-bodied with gorgeously rich, concentrated fruit, a layered texture, and tremendous purity, it can be drunk young, but should hit its prime in 1-2 years, and last for 10-15.  

Domaine Denis Mortet
2011
Fixin Vieilles Vignes
Villages Red 750 ml
Score: 88
Tasted: Jan 15, 2014
Drink: 2017+
Issue: 53
Note: from 40 year old vines in the tiny .74 ha vineyard of Champs Pennebaut, which is near the Couchey border for the inveterate map readers among you
Producer note: Arnaud Mortet observed that the 2012 vintage "suffered through a troubled and extended flowering that was responsible for much of the naturally low yields. The bunches were loose and with tiny berries that allowed the fruit to be super clean at the harvest. I decided to start picking on the 23rd of September and brought in ripe fruit that needed only small amounts of chaptalization and in some cases, none at all. As I have been slowly doing each vintage now, I once again lightened the extraction. I shortened the cool maceration period from 7 days to 5 and did a 21 day total cuvaison. In the same vein I used a bit less new wood as well and it now averages about one-third though that of course varies wine by wine. I completely destemmed in 2012 though I have been thinking about doing some more experimenting with using some whole clusters so we will see going forward. As to the style of the 2012s I think it's the kind of vintage that everyone will like. The wines are ripe but fresh and with a mid-palate succulence that makes them a pleasure to drink." As I commented last year the Mortet 2011s are excellent and now that they are in bottle they confirm the quality that I saw last year. Mortet noted that his 2011s, revisited below, were bottled between January and April, 2013. (Martine's Wines, www.martineswines.com, Novato, CA; multiple UK sources, including Bibendum Wine Ltd., www.bibendum-wine.co.uk, Berry Brothers & Rudd, www.bbr.com, Goedhuis & Co., www.goedhuis.com, Justerini & Brooks, www.justerinis.com, Harrods Limited, www.harrods.com, Laytons, www.laytons.co.uk, and The Wine Society, www.thewinesociety.com, Tanners Wine, www.tanners-wines.co.uk).
Tasting note: An adroit application of wood sets off fresh and ripe if somber aromas of dark berries, violets and plum. The very round, suave and supple flavors display both good energy and fine volume before terminating in a balanced and persistent finish that exhibits a bit of youthful Fixin austerity and rusticity.
 

Rating

92

Release Price

$74

Drink Date

2012 - 2018

Reviewed by

Antonio Galloni

Issue Date

28th Feb 2011

Source

193, The Wine Advocate

The 2008 Vintage Tunina is terrific. The wine’s trademark expansive bouquet and generous fruit are beautifully balanced by a vein of minerality that is the hallmark of this cool year. All of the elements come together beautifully in the glass as the 2008 Vintage Tunina shows off layers of succulent peaches, pears, apricots, flowers and mint, along with hints of sweetness from the late-harvested fruit that is such a big component of the wine’s signature style. Vintage Tunina is Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Ribolla Gialla, Malvasia Istriana and Picolit. Anticipated maturity: 2012-2018. These new releases from Silvio Jermann include a number of fabulous bottles. In particular, I was impressed with the top 2008s, a vintage where the cool minerality of the year prevails over the house’s typically lush style, an approach I tend to find less interesting. Jermann has a new red on the horizon, the Pignolo Vigna Truss, from recently purchased hillside vineyards in Dolegna, the home of his massive, new cellar. Previously, Jermann’s Pignolo had mostly come from the flats of Villanova, a far less prestigious village in Isonzo, rather than the Collio. I tasted all of the 2009 entry-level whites from screwcaps. Readers should be aware that Jermann is owned by my wife’s uncle. I have always viewed education as an important component of wine criticism. An article on Friuli without these wines would have been incomplete and ultimately the consumer would have been poorer for their exclusion. For those reasons I have chosen to include the wines in this report. Neither my wife nor I have any financial or other interest, direct or indirect, in this property.

Rating

87

Release Price

$26

Drink Date

2012 - 2024

Reviewed by

David Schildknecht

Issue Date

26th Apr 2012

Source

200, The Wine Advocate

Site-typical vanilla-tinged apple with bright inflections of fresh lemon dominate the nose and delicate juicy palate of Loosen’s 2010 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Kabinett. This understated Kabinett lacks the mineral savor or finishing refreshment of its Lay counterpart, but is adeptly balanced, admirably persistent, and should perform well for at least a dozen years. Cellarmaster Bernhard Schug offers an unadorned impression of the travails of 2010, in which he extensively double-salt de-acidified his musts. “This was especially necessary for the dry wines,” he points out, adding “I’m frankly surprised that those turned out as well as they did. The most stressful aspect of the harvest is that we waited for gradual diminution of acids and additional ripeness in flavor until we couldn’t wait any longer, and then it was a real rush to pick. It was an agitated, tension-filled autumn, and that is the way the wines turned out, too. We could have de-acidified another gram or so and ended up with an acid profile like that of 2009, but this would have been a mistake and have sacrificed the individuality of the vintage.” While Erni Loosen remains a staunch defender of residually sweet, delicate Mosel Kabinett as a category, his 2010s unfortunately underscore the challenges to achieving consistent success with this genre in an era when even in this, the rainiest growing season in nearly a quarter century, must weights galloped. It was with joy and relief that I began tasting the series of residually sweet Spatlesen from this collection, because what went before – with three exceptions – was frankly disappointing. Loosen has elected to henceforth accentuate the difference between Spatlese and Auslese by incorporating in the latter category, as Schug puts it, “more botrytis than we would have had in an Auslese three years ago.” (For the 2010s, that meant around one-third of the fruit.) The corollary of this – which has the desired result of simplifying the portfolio – is that with the exception of Pralat there is not, and will likely also not be in future, any gold capsule Auslese. Interestingly – though this can certainly be a matter of caprice and luck – only one of the wines in this year’s collection displayed any “Mosel stink” from fermentative residues or reductive reaction with the dose of sulfur applied at bottling, even though this phenomenon can often be a short-term annoyance with the odd Loosen bottling and was encountered quite often in other Mosel collections of the 2010 vintage. (If I could explain the phenomenon in question more adequately chemically, I would be only too glad to publish that explanation; but extended correspondence with scientific specialists has thus-far proved far from decisive.)

Dark, straw-yellow colour. Intense, fine and elegantly fruity bouquet reminiscent of peach, apricot, citrus, fruit and acacia flowers. Fresh, impeccably balanced and very drinkable, with a long, delicate aftertaste.