June Offline - Washington State wines. Arranged by plusvini, who also arranged to miss the event. We retaliated by telling the restaurant that he would be taking care of the bill.
2000 Ch. St. Michelle Cold Creek Chardonnay - simple oak nose, sweet entry, quite dry on palate with fair length. Average American oaked chard.2002 McCrea Viognier - odd slightly funky nose that cleared a bit but never offered much in the way of varietal clues. Good flavour concentration, perhaps slightly high terminal acidity - not as good as some of the BC Viognier.
1998 McCrea Boushey Vineyard Grand Cote Syrah - good plumy spicy nose with some cocoa, bright on palate with good balance and length. Good now and will hold a few years.1997 Seven Hills Klipsun Vineyard Merlot - technically a Washington wine as the fruit is sourced there although the winery is on the other side of the Columbia River. Dark edges and a little vinyl that blew off leaving some ripe berries in the nose. Not leaping out as a merlot, initially more like a cab with good acid and medium length.
After we retrieved Mishy from the men's washroom (don't ask), we did a flight of four wines together:
2001 Dellile Chaleur - obviously the youngest wine of the flight, it had an international Bordeaux style of nose and a sweet entry, long and full in the mouth. Excellent wine.1996 Dellile Chaleur - this suffered in comparison to the younger representative - more development in the nose with an interesting orange skin element and some spice. A bit tight, and I thought a tad on the simple side, but I do not think it will get better with further age.
1998 Seven Hills Cabernet Reserve - once in awhile the winery blends special lots from different vineyards to produce a reserve wine, usually almost all cabernet. This example had good depth of fruit and was well balanced with good acidity and a supple feel. good wine.1998 Leonetti Cabernet - we knew that there were a couple of bottles of Australian wine coming and we thought this might be one of them! Big fruit and an earthiness blended with spicy oak in the nose, some remaining tannin, but fairly well integrated, and excellent depth of flavour, with a sweet jammy finish. Needs a bit more time, but delicious now!
With cheese:
1998 Rockford Basket Pressed Shiraz - silly us - and we'd thought the Leonetti was an Oz wine! This was the real thing and had a dark, hot nose with ginger and blackberries, great concentration and a long sweet end. Veeeery tasty!1983 Lindemans Bin 6600 Shiraz - this mature Hunter Valley wine started out with a slightly plasticy warm nose, but opened up nicely to add some mint. An harmonious wine in excellent shape, it began to fade a bit only after about a half hour of exposure to air. A nice treat for me, as I enjoy mature wines (I know - its no substitute for mature company, but what can you do?)
2001 Ch. Golan Royal Reserve (Eliad) - yes, an Israeli wine brought over by Eli, in a magnum bottle that looked like it had been designed to hold bath oil, or as one of those odd containers that Italians unaccountably stuff with olives in various layered arrangements even though you'd really have to break the damned thing to get them out again. Although the label claimed a typical Bordeaux blend, Eli swore that there was also Syrah in it. The wine was not obviously a hot country wine and indeed showed some elegance and a well made claret style with medium length and quite a bit of flavour interest. Always interesting to taste odd wines, especially if they are good like this one was!