Costanti Brunello di Montalcino 2001

This wine was the topic of discussion in the comments to the post on the Fuligni Brunello. All sorts of professionals have given it high scores: Wine Enthusiast gave 92; Wine Spectator gave it 93; and most glowing of all, Stephen Tanzer gave it a 94(+?). So I splurged and bought a bottle for Kelly's birthday. I figured this is a chance to try a really good Brunello at a reasonable price (at least by Brunello standards).

It didn't live up to the hype, for either me or Kelly. Excellent structure, well balanced, and while it did open up after an hour or so, there just wasn't a lot of interest or complexity. I'd have to score it around 88 or 89. It's comparable in some ways to the Montus, in having great structure and balance with not a lot else (although the particular style is very different).

I'm not sure what's going on here. I don't think it's over the hill, as WS says best after 2010. Could it have been poorly stored? I know there's good wine standing upright on the shelves at Prospect St that has been there for more than a year, so that I know that storage isn't ANBL's forte. Or maybe the flavours of Brunello are just too subtle for my palate. But Stephen Tanzer talks about a "vibrant nose" and "intesity. . . of flavour" that I just can't find. Maybe it's a combination of all of the above.

Bottom line: I don't know what's up, but I won't be lining up to pay regular price for a Brunello, no matter how highly it's rated.

Here is what Kelly had to say:

"The nose is very promising, with dried flowers, stewed dark fruit, fresh berries, herbs, spices, licorice, and cedar. It is unmistakably Italian. On the palate it is full and clear, with firm tannins and plenty of acidity, but with few of the flavours that the nose promised. It is very long, but ends on a bit of a hard, sour note. It started a bit closed, but opened after about an hour. Very good with roasted duck.

I enjoy Sangiovese, but haven’t had a lot Brunellos - although I think it was a Brunello that originally got me excited about Italian wine. I found this one disappointing, mainly because I found that it didn’t offer much of interest on the palate."

Price: $64.72 (on Sale)
Score: 88
Value: 2/5
Region: Italy
Grape: Sangiovese
Tasted: March 2009
UPC:726452007915

Ribeauville Prestige Pinot Gris 2005

When Iron Chef sent me this review something looked familiar. I did search of the blog (upper left hand corner) for "Ribeauville" and sure enough, Kelly and I had reviewed this wine a few months ago, right after the Wine Expo. I'm posting this as a separate post anyway. The consistency between our review and Iron Chef's is quite astonishing - the same score, the same value rating, and much the same description, down to petrol / turpentine and mineral notes. Maybe we're not just making it all up.

--- Iron Chef's Review ---

Had this with some Curry dishes last weekend. Really liked the Mango and tropical fruit that was balanced by flint-y minerals and petrol notes. The finish was long with fun fruit flavours of pineapple with good mineral acidity. A balanced wines that shows a bunch of class.

Price: $22.99
Value: 3.9/5
Score: 89
Region: France, Alsace
Tasted: March 2009
Alcohol 13.5%
UPC: 3156090316143

St Francis Old Vines Zinfandel 2005

Here's a review from Tancred that I've stolen from the 'Make a Suggestion' thread. He didn't give it a value rating in his initial comment, but in a private message he said that for value "I would say 3/5, because it was quite an interesting wine and I think I am suffering from wine-price bracket creep." Hmm. From the description it sounds more like 2/5. Price bracket creep must be fought at all costs. And the Colonial Estate Explorateur is in the same price bracket, and we scored it 85 with 2/5 for value. So as blog-meister, I say the score is 2/5 for this one too.

--- Tancred's review ---

I recently tried the St Francis Old Vines Zinfandel 2005 ($35.78). I'm quite interested in new world grape varieties in new world locations, such as SA Pinotage and California Zin since I know so little about them. The Zinfandel is a genetic clone of a Croatian grape that is also the probable origin of the Primitivo grape in Italy. Unfortunately our liquor store does not stock much at all in the way of dry red Zinfandel, but the St Francis looks to be a recent arrival.

The wine had a great nose - lots of red and dark fruit - cherries, plums, blackberries - that I really enjoyed. The palate was similar although I noted quite a harsh finish that I did not think of as 'grippy tannins'. The harsh finished softened a bit by the second glass but was still detectable. At $36, I would say this wine is not great value for money, though it is certainly a solid enjoyable wine. It makes me wonder what a really good Zin would be like. I'm going to keep looking.

Price: $35.78
Score: 85 first glass - 87 second glass
Value: 2/5
Region: USA, California
Grape: Zinfandel
Tasted: March 2009
UPC: 088534001434

Upcoming Wines

Here’s a list of the upcoming reviews:

St Francis Old Vines Zinfandel 2005 $36
Ribeauville Prestige Pinot Gris 2005 $23
Costanti Brunello di Montalcino 2001 (Sale wine) $65
Dona Paula Los Cardos Sauvignon Blanc 2008 $14
Pio Cesare Barbaresco 2000 $40 (no longer available)
Nobilo Sauvignon Blanc 2007 $20

Colonial Estate Explorateur 2005

"The cheap wine style, without the nasty cheap wine taste." That was my comment to Kelly after having a glass of this wine. I didn’t enjoy this wine at all. I suppose they were going for the big, bold Aussie Shiraz style, but to my taste it came across as unbalanced and garish. I don’t know what the residual sugar is, but it certainly tasted cloying sweet. And while Kelly says “fresh cherries, with a hint of evergreen,” I’d say cherry cough syrup with menthol. Maybe it will mellow with age, but there are less expensive wines with more to offer in the same style (for example the Wynn’s Coonawarra.) I can’t understand how this wine and the Envoy came from the same winery in the same year. This wine is making me seriously second guess the high score we gave to the Envoy. But Kelly thinks it really was just a lot better. Anyway, we agreed on the score; while I didn’t enjoy it, it was well enough made in the style.

Here's what Kelly had to say. Note that we agreed on the score:

"The nose is predominantly fresh cherries, with a hint of evergreen and spice and also a bit of hotness. There's more fruit on the palate, which is clear and fresh, and a bit sweet, and ends with firm tannins. It is lighter and clearer on the palate than I'd expect from shiraz, which tends to be more rich and spicy. This wine is very difficult to score. It has some very nice flavors, and a decent structure and clarity on the palate, but it also has some objectionable flavours and qualities, such as sweetness and a funny cheapish edge. I'd like to pay under $20, although I could easily see it being as much as $30."

Price: $28.10 (on Sale)
Score: 85
Value: 2 / 5
Region: Australia, Barossa
Grape: Shiraz
Tasted: March 2009
UPC: 9338498004301

Giotto Rosso Chianti 2006

Here's sale wine review from Michelle -- and it looks like we might have a winner in the 'value wine' category.

--- Michelle's Review ---

Everyone loves a sale. Slap a "discount" sticker on anything and someone will buy it. This especially rings true when it comes to wine. On this occasion I was happy to find a Chianti smack dab in my price range. What a treat. It was Friday, I had a bad week and this was the light at the end of my dark tunnel. I was almost salivating at the thoughts of drinking this wine.
I opened this bottle but did not decant because I thought I would be drinking this alone. I let it breathe in the bottle for about 1/2 hour then poured into my glass for another 15 minutes. I love doing the initial smell as soon as the cork is pulled versus after breathing. The first nose I got...vanilla (????) Where was the oak, dirt and earth? Then once it had been in my glass the aromas came forth! The first sip I got the oak, light and slightly earthy. Very nice smooth finish. Picture a sitting under an oak tree after a summer rain shower. :-)

Price: $14.09 (on Sale)
Score: 89
Value: 4 / 5
Region: Italy, Chianti
Grape: Sangiovese
Tasted: March 2009
UPC: 8004401000500

Château Montus Madiran 2002

I was quite keen to try this wine as I generally like the Madiran style and this one is made by the same produceur, Alain Brumont, as the Bouscassé Vieilles Vignes, which I love. And the style was great. Rich, full and dark, with excellent structure - a ‘manly’ wine, as we like to call this style. I wouldn’t say ‘firm’ tannins as they weren’t obtrusive - maybe ‘round’ tannins is the right word. Beautifully balanced, in whatever the right word might be. But unfortunately, it lacked the fruit or complexity to go along with that great structure. Very enjoyable with food, but not a wine I would spend time savouring on its own. I’m a bit torn because there are things I loved about this wine, but in the end Kelly and I both agreed on a score of 88.

With that said, it is possible that we didn’t give it enough time to breathe. Normally we let a wine breathe and spend a couple of hours with it, but we popped this open at the end of a long day and it disappeared faster than usual. And that was only the first half bottle - we still have the second half waiting for us. But no tasting is perfect, so we’ll just have to stick with our initial impression, with those caveats tacked on.

Price: $28.72 (on Sale)
Score: 88 - first tasting / 91 second tasting, comments (see below)
Value: 3 / 5
Region: France, Madiran
Grape: Tannat (80%), Cabernet Sauvignon (20%)
Tasted: March 2009
Alcohol: 14.5%
UPC: 3372220021019

Stoneleigh Marlborough Riesling 2007

Here's a quick review from Iron Chef. I've picked it off the "March Madness" post to make it searchable - remember, you can search the posts from the 'Search Blog' box in the upper left corner of the blog. Unfortunately, this function does not search the comments, which is why I like to post reviews into their own posts.

Also, remember that not every review has to be long, and it worth reviewing wines that you didn't much like: knowing which wines to avoid is as important as knowing which ones to buy. A quick review of a mediocre wine is very welcome.

With that said...

--- Iron Chef's Review ---

I had this sale wine last night- It had some fun wet stones and Petrol tastes but it was completely forgetable. The palate had light pineapple and some crisp-ness, but boring- really not much there. I was pass this wine by.

Retail Price: $14.62
UPC: 9414505982005

ANBL 'March Madness' Sale 2009

We've had a few wines reviewed already that are featured for ANBL's "March Madness" sale. I'm not sure how long the sale is on for, but I'll give priority to any reviews of the sale wines. I'll label them with "March Sale 2009" so you can find them all by clicking on "March Sale" under Discussions in the sidebar. Kelly and I have a couple of reviews of sale wines in the pipeline, but we'd certainly like to hear about as many sale wines as possible. If I get enough reviews I'll post every day rather than every other day to make sure I get them all up before the sale ends. If you a review or short comment on sale wine, you can post it under "Make a Suggestion" or send it to me directly at nbwines / at / gmail /dot/ com.

Here is the price list for the sale wines.

Casa de la Ermita Jumilla Crianza 2003

By coincidence I received two separate reviews of this wine today (Friday) so obviously it had to go up next - in fact, I’m going to break my ‘every other day’ rule and post this Saturday. I'm very enthusiastic about this development - the point of the this blog is to try and get a variety of opinions, on the theory that "two heads are better than mine." In this case it is interesting to see that both reviewers independently gave it the same score and pretty much the same value rating!

— Peanutman’s Review —

This wine was suggested to me by one of the NBLC sommeliers. For the price, I was very pleased. I had a hard time with the smell. I wasn't blown away by the smell and I swirled and swirled. Jam, maybe, forest, maybe. I just couldn't tell. My wife and I both like big bold wines, and we both felt this one met our criteria. It is full and flavourful. There are some sweet tannins, but nothing to bug you. There is a decent length to it and it seems that I could actually chew on this wine. In addition, it obviously spent some time in oak, with a hint of vanilla somewhere in there. Basically, we just really liked this wine and it was as good on the second day.

For $23, I would say it is a 4 out of 5 for value. At $17.50, I would give it a 4.5 out of 5. My score, 89 (for whatever that is worth)

— Vasco da Gama’s Review —

Viva Espagna! Iron Chef was looking for a review of a more moderately priced wine, so here you go.

Picked up a couple bottles of this in the wine sale, and was not disappointed. This is quite the concoction of several varietals. This wine is fairly dry, but still juicy (and fruity) and has moderate tannins and quite a bit of acidity...probably will hold up for another couple of years.

This wine reflects a bit of everything; nice and fruity (after it opens up a bit)-cherry strawberry, but not overly. You get some of the benefits of the aging, with the 6 years bringing some light earthy characteristics. The key is that everything is very well integrated. This is a very nice and enjoyable wine for the mere $18.

Upon looking, I see that there is none left in Fredericton, but lots in other cities. May be worth getting some shipped in. If anyone gets their hands on some remember to let it breathe for a couple hours to fully appreciate what this wine has to offer!

Overall 89pts
5/5 for value (complexity normally seen in the high $20s low $30s)

—

Price: $17.47 (on Sale)
Score: 89
Value: 4.5 - 5 / 5
Region: Spain, Jumilla
Grape: Tempranillo, Monastrell (Mourvèdre), Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot
Tasted: March 2009
Alcohol: 13.5%
UPC: 8435053323035