Hello, The wine: Emanuel Darnaud Crozes-Hermiotage 2004. Background: a year ago, self and Xina visited a large communal tasting in Tain-Hermitage looking for a Northern Rhone Syrah for our friends, the GWI. We found this producer adn their red. Being mortally curious we invested in two bottles of the white (100% Marsanne) without previous tasting. In retrospect, this may have been a mistake. After various good advice, we settled on papaya with proscuitto di Parma, a dash of lime and black pepper, as starter; then, as maincourse, scallops with a cream sauce, very lightly flavoured with ras-al-hanout (the yellow one), julienne of carrots, celery, åparsnip, and leek, and tagliatelle di myrtille - pasta flavoured with blueberries (from Serre Chevalier where they are mad about blueberries). The wine obviously was very young. On the nose, butter, bit of wooly wet mittens, and parsley. A slight acidity discernible nasally. On the palate, a certain lack of complexity. ACidity is low, despite nose, appears fairly high in alcohol. QPR -, considering a price well over SEK 200. Worked not very well with the starter. I´d rather try Tahbilk´s Viognier (which has a sprightly acidity and is very aromatic). With the main course, a very decent pairing. Cream sauce lifts the wine a bit. Would be even better with a communal Meursault, though.
This white is definitely inferior to the red from the said producer.
Cheers
Nils Gustaf