'01 Vieux Donjon and Others

Garden dinner the other night, to check out some wines that might warrant purchase.

2002 Dominique Pabiot Pouilly-Fume Les Vielles Terres - the best part of this wine was the nose, which was a nice grassy sauvignon blanc nose. In the mouth the wine was very dry, which is fine, but it fell off much too quickly, leaving little but the ample acidity, and was all in all a bit bland.

With tarte l'oignon:

2000 Albert Mann Riesling - the basic wine, and again, not considered worthy of purchase. It had a good petrol varietal nose, but was quite simple. Well made, plenty of acidity, dry, pleasant, but that said it all.

With some wild sockeye salmon in beurre blanc with parsleyed new potatoes and asparagus gremolata:

2001 Poplar Grove Pinot Gris Reserve - from a small BC winery, I served these two with labels obscured to see whether people liked the regular or the reserve. Less nose than the next one, but crisper with higher acidity, and a bigger wine with some wood, which seemed out of place for a pinot gris.

2001 Poplar Grove Pinot Gris (regular bottling) - a more immediately detectable nose, but no particularly varietal character, just a bit of citrus. Reasonable middle, decent finish with a faint touch of sweetness absent from the reserve, perhaps a touch too soft in consequence, but nonetheless the preferred wine of

3 out of the 4 tasters.

With cheese:

2001 Vieux Donjon CNduP - a perfumed leather and smoky berry nose was delightful. Good concentration and excellent fruit masks the tannins a bit, and they are actually quite firm. Good length. I'm afraid I shall have to cellar some of this! I'm not sure it is quite as good as the outstanding 1998, but I look forward to trying them side by side in about 5 years.

1990 Vieux Donjon CNduP - I sprang this one them blind, as I hadn't tasted in some years. The dges clearly browner than the purple '01, and the nose has lost the forward fruit of youth, but retains the leather, herbs and pepper. Tons of concentration in the midpalate, and the wine still has appreciable tannins, so there is no rush at all. This one is still on the upward curve, but probably nearing its peak where I expect it to hold for a number of years. It would be fun to open another one with the 98 and '01 in five years.