Produttori 2003 Barbaresco
Imagine spring flowers and baby lamb running around pastures. Now imagine that baby lamb roasted and surrounded by roasted garlic with rose petal essence. 2003 a hot year in Piedmont limited this wine to the more value-oriented tan label vineyards blend. Mores the better for us! It is sanguine red in the glass, yet still bright and clear enough to see through slightly, with a brickish and rose hue. The ruddy colors are further carried in the smell… Pungent red cherry, both dried and fresh red rose petals, tar and cola, all leap out and are apparent. There are some other dark scents that are somewhat masked by the perfume, tar, and cola; that I could not quite identify – potentially some clay earth and marrow. The flavors also mirrored the scents and this isn’t what I would qualify as a thinkers wine, but hold your doubts, bare your canines and tear in. Very red cherries, rose perfume and incense, tar and cola, marrow, and with a dusty dry red brick clay finish. While this maybe not a thinker’s wine; it is a good wine, and wolfishly I drank plenty. Definitely food friendly, it is grippy with its tannins, and it paired very well with the garlic and medium rare lamb with blood orange and potatoes with fennel it accompanied. It has a slight thickness to the mouth-feel and daring nature to it with the way it will grab your tongue if drank without food. Its felt to me as if a reduction of flavors, to concentrate them with a tannic and alcoholic lift or kick. Still its not the largest, neither most auspicious, nor most refined Barbaresco… however, a very good profile and value at its price. Still some floats around as well but it wont last long as the 04’s and 05’s are now available as well. Find your inner carnivore, let out a howl while pouring Produttori ’03, and feast. En Boca Lupo!
Flavor Profile: 4/5
Value Profile 4.5/5 ($26-28 for a Barbaresco – that should put a spring in your step)
2007 Coteaux d'Aix en Provence Rosé, Commanderie de la Bargemone
I keep saying it; I’ll drink a rosé year round and there definitely is spring and summer encapsulated in many of these wines. This fine rosé hits that mark. Full of fresh green growth and new fruit, it seemed very much a warm spring wind out of some dry grassy gorge or off a farming plain. It’s from the Provence area of France and reflects the color of rosé I expect from there; coppery amber with a carnation pink hue. It has a scent I can only think of as dust and minerally chalk covered strawberries and raspberries, with a somehow contradictory bright clean lift at the end. It was a relaxing quaff of spring in the mouth… It reminded me of chewing on new green herbs and sweet grass, and then it transitioned to pure strawberry essence. That was of interest to me noting the palate transition from dry to off-dry as it progressed. The finish was dusty but lacked some acid to make this a truly great rosé of Provence. Lightly austere and different than some rosé you may be accustomed to; a good wine that is the dew on sweet grass with the scent and flavor of wild strawberry and its flowers. It should dully impress both rosé drinkers and those less familiar alike, especially paired with light seafood or grilled fare.
Flavor Profile: 4/5
Value Profile 4.5/5 ($12-14 is what you should find this for)
NV Drappier Champagne Carte d’Or
Have you had those foil wrapped chocolate in the shape of an orange you whack to split and eat? Well whack away with this champagne! Yellow and gold on the label I can imagine unwrapping this champagne whack-an-orange. Bright brittle golden yellow in color, it smelled of yeast, challah, and hazelnuts; it appeared very dry and bracing in the smell and you might expect very little fruit. However once in the mouth, wow, not at all what was expected. Bright citrus blends changing to orange coated in chocolate or cacao dust. Yes very much like the whack-an-orange chocolates but with a oval mouth-feel that rounded with hazelnut and other warm nut-butter-creamy-goodness finishing with a dry light tightly curled acid. Yes my dash description was a run on but I find myself wanting to run on and on about this wonderfully smooth sparkler. Orange, chocolate and nuts - No chocolate orange ever tasted so good. Did I say yum yet?
Flavor Profile: 4.5/5
Value Profile 4.5/5 (around $30/bottle)
Imagine spring flowers and baby lamb running around pastures. Now imagine that baby lamb roasted and surrounded by roasted garlic with rose petal essence. 2003 a hot year in Piedmont limited this wine to the more value-oriented tan label vineyards blend. Mores the better for us! It is sanguine red in the glass, yet still bright and clear enough to see through slightly, with a brickish and rose hue. The ruddy colors are further carried in the smell… Pungent red cherry, both dried and fresh red rose petals, tar and cola, all leap out and are apparent. There are some other dark scents that are somewhat masked by the perfume, tar, and cola; that I could not quite identify – potentially some clay earth and marrow. The flavors also mirrored the scents and this isn’t what I would qualify as a thinkers wine, but hold your doubts, bare your canines and tear in. Very red cherries, rose perfume and incense, tar and cola, marrow, and with a dusty dry red brick clay finish. While this maybe not a thinker’s wine; it is a good wine, and wolfishly I drank plenty. Definitely food friendly, it is grippy with its tannins, and it paired very well with the garlic and medium rare lamb with blood orange and potatoes with fennel it accompanied. It has a slight thickness to the mouth-feel and daring nature to it with the way it will grab your tongue if drank without food. Its felt to me as if a reduction of flavors, to concentrate them with a tannic and alcoholic lift or kick. Still its not the largest, neither most auspicious, nor most refined Barbaresco… however, a very good profile and value at its price. Still some floats around as well but it wont last long as the 04’s and 05’s are now available as well. Find your inner carnivore, let out a howl while pouring Produttori ’03, and feast. En Boca Lupo!
Flavor Profile: 4/5
Value Profile 4.5/5 ($26-28 for a Barbaresco – that should put a spring in your step)
2007 Coteaux d'Aix en Provence Rosé, Commanderie de la Bargemone
I keep saying it; I’ll drink a rosé year round and there definitely is spring and summer encapsulated in many of these wines. This fine rosé hits that mark. Full of fresh green growth and new fruit, it seemed very much a warm spring wind out of some dry grassy gorge or off a farming plain. It’s from the Provence area of France and reflects the color of rosé I expect from there; coppery amber with a carnation pink hue. It has a scent I can only think of as dust and minerally chalk covered strawberries and raspberries, with a somehow contradictory bright clean lift at the end. It was a relaxing quaff of spring in the mouth… It reminded me of chewing on new green herbs and sweet grass, and then it transitioned to pure strawberry essence. That was of interest to me noting the palate transition from dry to off-dry as it progressed. The finish was dusty but lacked some acid to make this a truly great rosé of Provence. Lightly austere and different than some rosé you may be accustomed to; a good wine that is the dew on sweet grass with the scent and flavor of wild strawberry and its flowers. It should dully impress both rosé drinkers and those less familiar alike, especially paired with light seafood or grilled fare.
Flavor Profile: 4/5
Value Profile 4.5/5 ($12-14 is what you should find this for)
NV Drappier Champagne Carte d’Or
Have you had those foil wrapped chocolate in the shape of an orange you whack to split and eat? Well whack away with this champagne! Yellow and gold on the label I can imagine unwrapping this champagne whack-an-orange. Bright brittle golden yellow in color, it smelled of yeast, challah, and hazelnuts; it appeared very dry and bracing in the smell and you might expect very little fruit. However once in the mouth, wow, not at all what was expected. Bright citrus blends changing to orange coated in chocolate or cacao dust. Yes very much like the whack-an-orange chocolates but with a oval mouth-feel that rounded with hazelnut and other warm nut-butter-creamy-goodness finishing with a dry light tightly curled acid. Yes my dash description was a run on but I find myself wanting to run on and on about this wonderfully smooth sparkler. Orange, chocolate and nuts - No chocolate orange ever tasted so good. Did I say yum yet?
Flavor Profile: 4.5/5
Value Profile 4.5/5 (around $30/bottle)
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