2007 Waters Crest Chardonnay Private Reserve

Vintage 2007
Type White
Producer Waters Crest
Variety Chardonnay
Designation Private Reserve
Country USA
Region New York
SubRegion Long Island
Appellation North Fork
Disclosure This was received as an unsolicited free sample.



Night One

I wrestled with the nose for at least thirty minutes before admitting what I was smelling-flat Blue Moon with a lime slice floating atop it, with a toasted toothpick stuck through the lime. But, and this will seem truly weird, in a good way.

The palate is equally odd, and quite similar to the nose. Age flat Blue Moon in heavily toasted French oak (lots of toasty wood, but not vanilla or butter, so not American oak) for 18 months, add a slice of lime, and you will know what this wine tastes like.

Night Two

The nose is not significantly different from Night One. It has the same flat-beer and toasted wood aroma, though the toast is stronger. There is also a little ginger.

The palate is also similar to Night One. The lime is gone, replaced by ginger, but flat beer aged in very heavily toasted oak remains the lead flavor. If you really hunt for it you can find a bit of apple, but not much.

Varietal characteristics show up, not in the flavor, but in the mouth-feel. This is incredibly creamy, mouth-filling, and smooth.

I realize my description does not sound like a great wine, but that would not be fair. Let me tell you what I did. I took this to one my "wine guy," one of the two best palates (IMHO) in Indiana to get his opinion, because this was just so different. On the nose he asked, "Australia?," but no guess on varietal. He picked up chardonnay on the creamy mid-palate, not the flavor. Then he picked up the phone, called the winery, and asked if he could be their exclusive carrier in the State. This is really interesting wine, and you could blind taste-test 100 sommeliers in a row, and if 1 says "Long Island" without cheating, I'll buy you another bottle. The wine guy, by the way, is going to market this as "Cigar Chard," for cigar lovers who prefer white to red, because its mouth-filling toastiness has the body to complement a good smoke.





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2007 Humanitas Chardonnay Oak Free

Type: White
Producer: Humanitas
Variety: Chardonnay
Designation: Oak Free
Country: USA
Region: California
SubRegion: Central Coast
Appellation: Monterey County



The Little Wooden Guy really appreciates good wine without the gratuitous use of wood, so give this one a try.

Night One

The nose has more pears than apples, plus a bit of soft banana. There is also a slight underlying background tropical smell of pineapple.

The palate has a thick glycerin mouth-feel. The flavors open with apple, turning to pineapple and starfruit toward the mid-palate. This is creamy smooth, and a welcome oak- and vanilla-free.

Night Two

The nose is more tropical on Night Two than Night One. The lead fruit is pineapple, some butterscotch, and bruised red apples.

The palate, too, is more tropical on the attack, leading with sweet-tart fresh pineapple plus the soft flavor of banana. Apples appear on the mid-palate, along with some butterscotch, before tartness returns on the mid-palate. The tartness is not the sour tart you would find in lemon or lime, but the sweet tropical bite of a starfruit.

This is good wine. If you have run away from Chardonnay, afraid of juice flavored with wood, vanilla, and butter, come back and try it again.

Cruising the Caribbean and drinking wine

I took the wife and kidlets on a seven day cruise of the Western Caribbean last week. Lots of stops of T-shirts and shells, and endless buffet of mediocre food, great service and food that didn't match for dinner, and a genuinely boring wine list. But wait, I brought some of my own wine. Or at least, I tried. The ship was out of Miami. My mom lives in Miami. I sent her boyfriend a list of wines to buy and his wine ***SUPERSTORE*** did not have a single one out of a dozen or more. Rest assured, the wine guy said, here are some bottles that he'll LOOOOVE, if he liked those. Let's see how that worked out, shall we?

I suggested Chateau Branaire-Ducru 1999. They didn't have it. Their substitute?

Arthurs, Cotes de Castillon 2004

Grand vin de Bordeaux
13% alc

Night One

The nose was green, herbaceous & hot, hiding a tiny little bit of black fruit & blueberries. The overall smell was of unripe wine, stems & leaves. It did not improve on the palate, which was all green, stems & leaves. There was a little black fruit. Very dry leathery tannins overpowered everything else.

Night Two

Blackcurrants & blackberries lead the nose, which has far more fruit and less green on nt 2. It seems hot & makes me wonder about the alcohol level. The palate was less green, showing blackberry and a touch of sage, but it ends with very strong overpowering tannins that dry out the mouth and leave little but leather & plum skins.

I suggested Groom Shiraz 2004. They didn't have it. The substitute?

Thorn Clarke Terra-Barossa Shiraz 2006

This was pretty good stuff.

Night One

The nose was very powerful, but not merely a fruit bomb. It brought coffee & black pepper, and blackberries. The palate brought blackberries & pepper, some coffee, softening on the mid-palate to more mild plums & black cherries. It had a long finish & fine sweet tannins, slightly drying, promising plenty more life in the cellar.

Night Two

The nose was blackberries & black pepper, with some black cherry. The palate was blueberry & black cherry, and sweet tannins. The mid-palate evolved to vanilla, cedar & cream. It was very creamy & soft. Fruity but not a fruit bomb. It had a long tooth-coating finish. Very good.

I went to a wine tasting on board the ship. It was a special tasting set up for frequent cruisers (my mother cruises all the time an gave me her tickets). I was a bit surprised to see just how they low-balled the wine selection for their best customers. It was also very fast, lacking sufficient time to really explore the wines, or to take very good notes.

First up was Caliterras Sauvignon Blanc, '07

The color was very light, an almost clear gold. The nose brought lemon zest, pink grapefruit & ginger. The ginger was not overpowering but was very evident. As soon as I mentioned it everybody at the table nodded their heads, as if it was the smell they were trying to put their fingers on. The initial attack was grapefruit and grass. Th ginger from the nose showed up clearly on the mid-palate. The finish was medium length. The mouth feel was slightly oily, and the overall impression a little fat.

Second up was Stone Cellars Chardonnay, '07

The color was pale straw. The nose was pure caramel apple. The same apples and caramel showed up on attack, along with some lemon zest. The apple-taste changed a bit on the mid-palate, moving from fresh apples to baked apples, vanilla & brown sugar. The vanilla seemed to just get stronger and stronger throughout, the wood eventually taking over. The overall impression was very fat and woody.

Third up was, by far, the most interesting wine in the tasting, Footprint Syrah '07.

I have never smelled such obvious coffee-grounds in a bottle of wine. The coffee was just screamingly obvious, along with some black pepper and blackberry. Very interesting. The coffee was there on the attack, too, along with unsweetened chocolate, burned rubber & blackberries. The tasting was ripping right along, but this is worth a follow-up with some more time to explore.

Stone Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon '06

Initially, the nose was interesting, even promising. There was the signature Cabernet blackcurrant, but that was not all. It also brought a surprising amount of mint. In fact, the mint was so clear I could identify it not just as mint, but specifically as wintergreen. There was also, alas, enough vanilla, or should I say VANILLA, to hint of oak to come. On the palate, too, there was promised, ultimately crushed by wood. Eucalyptus joined the blackcurrant and mint, but it all devolved quickly into vanilla and wood. This was a potentially pretty good wine absolutely crushed by efforts to make it mainstream and generic.

Finally, we had a reisling, Leonard Kreusch Reisling spatlese late harvest '07.

The nose was very sweet, offering not just pears, but the juice of canned pears. There were apples, too, along with the key lime from a key lime pie, rather than pure juice. Apples disappeared on the palate, leaving primarily pears plus a little key lime. We got hustled out to clear space for the first dinner seating so I can't say much more.

My overall impression was not overly enthusiastic. The wine list was a little thin. Mark-ups were not bad (about double, when they had a captive audience), but selections were pretty low-end with a few very high end "name" wines, like Opus 1 and Darioush. What it was really missing were the good wines in the middle.

Domaine Séguinot-Bordet Chablis 2003

Chablis
Vieilles Vignes
12.5% alcohol
$21.98

From the bottle notes:

Chablis located in north burgundy, produces exclusively dry white wine, from Chardonnay grapes. These wines exhibit aromas of flint and very fleshy, fruity flavors.

You can drink this wine with seafood, and white meats. Best served at about 54 degrees.

The wine flashes in the glass, a bright clear pale yellow. Aromas start with lemon and something special, first ginger snaps and then banana cream, without losing the underlying citrus. The palate comes with several layers, too, opening with lime zest, starfruit and minerals, then sweetening to that same banana cream, followed by lime, chalk and walnuts. This is medium bodies witha long finish.

Three hours later the wine had changed some, the nose still had soft rich banana cream, but lime and ginger snaps were replaced with pineapple and starfruit. The palate was a bit different, too, with lemon zest and lime zest, some starfruit and bananas.

It should be interesting to see how this evolves overnight.

SECOND NIGHT

UGH! FUNK!! No, really, FUNK! This slept in the fridge overnight and woke up smelling like sour milk (and no, there is not any bad milk in there). The first whiff was all spoiled milk. That faded to a butter smell mixed with pineapple, evolving slowly to add a light sprinkling of lime zest and some minerals. Drinking it was another story. It opened with lemon zest and something I had to reach way back into memory to identify, zweiback, followed by a soft banana skin a mineral melange. Sharp acidity and freshness were what you look for in a chardonnay. However, out of the fridge this was just too cold to do it justice.

Two hours later it was cool, not cold, but had not changed considerably. The funk was gone, but lime zest remained on the nose, along with buttered toast and banana. Up front and midpalate the temperature change meant almost nothing, still bringing banana peel and lime zest, then acidic minerality, but the finish lengthened, adding long-lingering kumquat and grapefruit.

The wine had good body throughout, from the long-legged swirl in the glass to the mouth-coating finish. The only problem was the initial funk on the second night, but that disappeared after some open time and a warm up from the fridge.