Alvaro Palacios Finca Dofí 2004 Wednesday, May 30 2007
Tasting Notes and Spain and Variety and Red and grenache et al
A 54 mm cork; I measured it. I almost needed two corkscrews to get it out, and I knew I was in trouble. Luckily I had the whole Saturday afternoon and night ahead of me to contemplate this wine. It was a rich red, with splashes of purple and lovely florals notes, followed by blackberries, old river gravel and raspberries. The palate is savoury and earthy, with blackberries, red liquorice and red cherries, gravelly tannins and lots of grip (but it was not that drying really). There was also superb fruit concentration, loving tannins and oodles of savouriness. A wine with some serious potential, but can be approached now - you won’t need a whip and a chair.
Rated : 93 PointsTasted : May07
Alcohol : 14.0%
Price : $145
Closure : Cork
Drink : 2008 - 2017
Source : The Wine Emporium
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Aidan at Souk restaurant suggested I try this when we ate there last Thursday. It was interesting timing since it was only a few days earlier that I had tried a few 2004 Burgundies. Before I visited Burgundy and Beaujolais in 2005 a local importer told me that the 2004 Beaujolais would look thin and nowhere near as rich as those of 2003. He also suggested that the 2004 Burgundies generally handled the tricky season better. The first bottle had a low level cork issue but the replacement oozed red fruits. The aromas were classic Beaujolais without a hint of herbal or green characters. The palate showed violets, cherries with a little rose. It was soft with a firm finish and went really well with the food. Not a wine of great length but quite pleasant. Aidan tells me that it opens up after a day and lasts for several days. The price is a guess since it was $40 on the wine list.
There has been a lot of talk about Sangiovese in recent years. I have found most to be disapointing but I sometimes wonder if its just not my kind of variety. The location of the Langi Ghiran cellar door is drop dead gorgeous (see the picture on the website) and in recent years they have replaced the dowdy old cellar door with a very spiffy new one. Just another reason to visit the region. The colour was medium density red with enough brilliance to gain my interest. The nose seems tight and unyielding. In a short time the aromas indicate cherry and raspberry. The palate is similar, showing varietal typicity and a hint of secondary flavours from the spice rack. Hard to describe the mix but overall a pleasant flavour set with a nice finish. It is tight suggesting that it will reward a little time in the cellar.
On the way back from our visit to Riverland we had a few days with a friend in the sea side town Anglesea. Obviously we try and drink local wine when on tour so this was selected by Wendy. The nose has lovely fresh zingy nectarine aromas with a little honey and maybe a bit of peach. On the palate the same flavours are there and it seems quite nice but to our palates the level of residual sugar was too high. It reminded me of the Taylors Chardonnay we had earlier in the year except this had more obvious sweetness. I knew a winery that had this style about ten years ago and it raced out the door and I am sure at this price point some will like it, but Wendy didn’t have a second glass!
Wendy and I took a week off to visit friends near Echuca and Mildura. We decided to cut across the Granite Hills areas in the Macedon Ranges on the way. I had never heard of this vineyard prior to seeing a sign on the road that lead to a rather cute tasting room. They had good wines at reasonable prices. Wendy chose this and I chose the Riesling. The owners make this wine on site. It was a cool climate medium weight shiraz. The nose had a little pepper, a little rose and a bit of strawberry/cherry style fruit. The palate has a lovely texture and the red berry fruit is well matched with a soft cinamon dose of oak. A soft style that builds on the palate. I see it as a shorter term wine but one of great value.
Tyson at Gardenvale Cellars who sells some wine for us suggested I try this. Prior to my time at Winorama and the GW influence I would not have bothered. But I am now curious about the variety and intend visiting the Hunter to look into this further. So how did this wine show? The nose was not very pleasant, showing a reductive character that tempted me to forget about it. However, it seemed to blow off and the palate actually looked pretty good. Not at all in the Hunters “Riesling” style, more in a rich complex, honey/tropical style that some unoaked Chardonnays have. The honey character was not strong but was a little toasty. It went much better with food, in my case a smoked trout risotto.
I have been wanting to try the Rousseau wines from 2004 for sometime and then they appeared in a most interesting blind tasting. We were not even told the variety let alone country or vintage. I feel that maybe I was set up since I was the last to review the first wine in the bracket which was a rather ordinary AR Gevrey Chambertin and the first to review the next wine which was this. I declared the bracket to be PN and that the first wine was the kind of 2004 Burgundy that worries me, due to its green, stalky nature. Then I declared this wine to be someones poor imitation of a Rousseau Chambertin. It did not have the green character as Linc saw in his Charmes Chambertin but it didn’t have great fruit concentration either. It did have that intense pencil shaving style oak treatment that Rousseau can do so well when matched with cherry flavours. I reckon it was light years ahead of the village wine but how will it age? This wine, the village wine and the Charmes that Linc reviewed emphasize the view that the difficulties of the season meant its a viticulturists year. In other words that the individual plots will shine. The tricky part is, you still have to factor in the role of the winemaker in terms of timing their harvest and how they handled the fruit. The latter point was illustrated by the next wine in the bracket, a Clos de Beze by Bouchard Pere et Fils. It was similar to the Rousseau but showed more cherry flavours, however it seemed more developed. I suspect both wines will peak in the 2010 to 2014 time frame. For the record, when the wines were revealed everyone present had a good laugh at “my imitation Rousseau”.
M. L’Eveque bought this wine to lunch as well as the feral fox reviewed a few days ago. We have tasted them over 3 days. This wine was very nice from the moment the cork was pulled. It had a nice red colour that seemed a little murky. I suspect that the Penfolds team have gone trendy and handled this wine very gently, including not filtering. The nose has similar aromas to that of the d’Arenberg with black cherry and a hint of beetroot. The difference was a lovely sweet oak aroma. The palate also showed this and the oak went very well with the fruit. A lovely rich wine. The wine was fine for the first 18 hours but died before the d’Arenberg at about 24 to 36 hours after opening.
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