[TN] Fishing for faculty

Last night, Jean and I hosted a "social" for a faculty candidate whom we're trying to hire. For this event, we opened five wines from the cellar:

2008 Céline & Laurent Tripoz Mâcon-Vinzelles Les Morandes nose: butter, minerals, citrus fruit palate: crisp acidity, good mid-palate fruit, clean finish

2011 Navarro Dry Gewurztraminer nose: lychee and minerals, a bit of ginger palate: medium body, good balancing acidity, at the dry/off-dry border

The two white wines we'd had before, and they performed very similarly last night. I got more butter in the Tripoz Macon than I had previously, but it blew off with a bit of time.

2005 Bella Vineyards Zinfandel Lily Hill Estate nose: spice, berryish fruit, pencil lead palate: fresh, acidic balance, medium body

A wine purchased at the winery years ago, I had no high hopes after reading fairly distressing notes on CT, but it performed above all expectations. Avoiding the heaviness and overextracted character of many Dry Creek Zins, it came across as fresh and juicy. I guess that we knew what we were doing when we bought this! ;-)

2008 Ch. D'Oupia Minervois nose: kirsch-like dark fruit, a bit of funk, stones palate: medium body, good acidity

Tasted blind, I'd have said that this was a good quality Cotes du Rhone. Another fine performance from this perennial QPR winner.

2002 Luigi Bosca Gala 1 nose: red and black berryish fruit, smoke, graphite palate: medium body, decent acidity, fully resolved tannins

A blend of Malbec, Petit Verdot and Tannat from Mendoza in Argentina, this was a gift from my research group a few years ago. Although I approached it with trepidation, it exceeded all expectation and was, all in all, quite tasty. Dunno if it was oaky in its youth, but at age 11 it has lost any trace of any oak treatment.

Mark Lipton