Saturday night we were invited to 3 parties. We're not really social butterflies, it's just all of our friends choose the same night. All of them were things I kind of felt like we needed to do, but 3 is too much. Luckily one of them was a fundraiser, so we just sent a check to that one. Then headed to the other two. First up was a housewarming party for good friends. There was an assortment of mostly mass-market wines, I tasted most, forgotten almost all of them, but know I did have:
2002 Barefoot Chardonnay -totally forgetable wine, why do I remember this when I forgot the others? C+ 2002 Christian Moreau Chablis - clean and lively, chalk and flint, apple and pear. Why am I sipping this other swill? Might as well just take a full glass of this and relax. B+Party #2 was a 25th anniversary for some neighbors, and a lot of similar industrial wine was served. I only tasted three:
2003 Estancia Chardonnay - I have thought other Estancia bottles reasonable examples in their price range, but this one out KJed KJ! Sweet, there has to be real residual sugar here, sitting on top of chippy oak. Pshaw. C+ 2002 Coppola Pinot Noir- I'm prepared to hate, I find the Coppola wines uninspiring at best. But I'm shocked (embarrassed?) to say...this wasn't bad. Medium-bodied fairly ripe Pinot, bright cherry fruit, ok. B 2001 Feudo Monaci Salice Salentino. Big ripe Southern red, herbs and dark fruit. A bit of oak, good for a $7 wine. BSunday was a busy day of treating the porch and taking Lucy the Basset to a St. Francis service in the yard of a local church (I'm not much of a church goer, but the minister is a close friend, and Lucy likes the other dogs - as well as cats, guinea pigs, ferrets, etc). I came home ready to collapse, but rebounded on aromas from the kitchen. Betsy made a delicious Marcella Hazan recipe - Calabrese lamb chops from the latest Saveur. Fantastic sauce with red peppers, green olives, etc. I had no wines from Calabria, so went to make do with a Tuscan. 1997 Villa Pillo Vivaldaia, a modest SuperT, was ...corked. Aaggghh. Too bad, because I actually thought there was an interesting wine underneath. Unlike a lot of '97 Tuscans from Bordeaux varietals, this seemed to have a decent acidic spine behind the dark fruit. I kept coming back, but the mustiness kept assaulting. Too bad. I opened a b'day gift, the 2001 Ramey Claret. Very ripe blackberry/black plum fruit, some coffee on the nose, fair amount of oak. Not my preferred style, but a nice wine that could use some time. B+
Grade disclaimer: I'm a very easy grader, basically A is an excellent wine, B a good wine, C mediocre. Anything below C means I wouldn't drink at a party where it was only choice. Furthermore, I offer no promises of objectivity, accuracy, and certainly not of consistency Dale
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