5.6.40
Fine Wine Diary The Bailey brothers have now tasted 12082 wines in 28 years 6 months and 14 days
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Diary index

A Fine Wine Tasting at Noel Young Wine 27/05/2002 (RJB)

An Oddbins Fine Wine tasting 26/05/2002 (TNB)

Recent dry whites 19/05/2002 (TNB)

Wine groups at MM's 19/05/2002 (TNB)

09/05/2002 (RJB)

Domaine Tempier at Raeburn Fine Wines 09/05/2002 (TNB)

05/05/2002 (RJB)

A selection from the Great Grog company 05/05/2002 (TNB)

The Diary - May 2002

A Fine Wine Tasting at Noel Young Wine 27/05/2002 (RJB)

Tasting notes added to Fine Wine Diary 27/05/2002   Return to top

An Oddbins Fine Wine tasting 26/05/2002 (TNB)

  • Pinot Gris 2001 (Grove Mill) Grapey, mothballs. Notably off-dry but with reasonable acidity and decent varietal character. A bit too sweet for the fruit quality perhaps. *
  • Pinot Noir 2000 (Grove Mill) In-your-face, warm cassis spicy cherry nose. Herbal notes emerge. Flimsy and unstructured on the palate - soft fruit and oak, it doesn't offer any sort of challenge. I'm not very keen. *
  • Santenay Gravieres 2000 (Roger Belland) Lifted cherry nose, cardomon perhaps. In the mouth, light but not lacking in fruit in some sense. Dry and austere. Slightly troubling - perhaps it will open out and merit another star, but for now *
  • Pinot Noir, Knights Valley 1998 Cherry and undergrowth nose - also meaty mushrooms - quite attractive. Pleasant enough fruit with a slightly sweet edge. This is a cheaper bottling from Peter Michaels. At least a good **
  • Pommard Les Vignots 1998 (Baron de la Charriere - Girardin) Leathery blackberry nose. Violets perhaps. Scented, dry, balanced. Structured. Good. **(*)
  • Langhe Rosso Pafoj 1999 (C. Icardi) Deep, slightly leafy, slightly cooked nose. Cassis hints, red fruits and honey - fascinating but hard to describe. Dry, long, rich, plummy palate. This is an interesting wine from an estate I was not aware of. I will be trying a bottle of this 100% Nebbiolo properly at some point. *** easy
  • Barbaresco Asili 1998 (Michele Chiarlo) Intense, blackberry-liquor, meaty nose. Seems a bit insubstantial at first - a bit hollow in the mid-palate - but it has a decent finish. Will it fill in? I think it might and on that basis **(*)
  • Cos d'Estournel 1988 Slightly orange colour - looks a bit muddy. The nose is leafy, rustic, perhaps not absolutely clean. Irony. Lacking freshness. This is not how I remember Cos 88, but I can't decide if this is an odd bottle or if it is going through an odd period. There is some class there though so lets say *** for now.
  • Chateaux Margaux 1997 Dry, sumptuous, yet strict. Floral nose and great length. Quite forward - sensible for the vintage I guess. Lots of concentration for the vintage too, but at least now it doesn't seem to be the last word in fineness. Perhaps that will emerge - I hope it hasn't been sacrificed for the concentration. ***
  • Tokay Pinot Gris Grand Cru Rangen VT 1996 (Schoffit) Off-dry. Orchard fruits. Pleasant luxurious finish. It was the end of a heavy evening and I was concentrating more on the Margaux. This probably scrapes a ***
Tasting notes added to Fine Wine Diary 26/05/2002   Return to top

Recent dry whites 19/05/2002 (TNB)

  • Puligny Montrachet Premier Cru Sous le Puits 1996 (J-C. Bachelet) I bought a few bottles of this having tried it last year in a restaurant. I thought at first this was an error since it seemed very thin on opening straight from the cellar. But white Burgundy must be not be drunk too cool and as it warmed a little a lovely mineral oily hazelnut Puligny character emerged together with an excellent finish. Very tightly wound at the moment with excellent acidity, this needs a few years. Probably scrapes **(**)
  • Chardonnay 2000, Vin de Pays du Jardin de la France (Bougrier - The Wine Society) Basic stuff - clean, decently concentrated and pleasant. I tend not to choose Chardonnay for my plonk (possibly because it inevitably sets my mind off towards grander things) but this is perfectly decent. *
  • Rully 1er Cru Les Cloux 1998 (Baron de La Charriere - Girardin) Melons and tropical fruit in a nicely restrained way. Nutty. Good weight and acidity. **
  • Puligny Pucelles 1992 (O. Leflaive) Nice nutty, smoky fruit, even if the blowsyness of the vintage is a bit present. ***
  • Chassagne Montrachet Les Caillerets 1989 (J.-N. Gagnard) I've been drinking this wine from my own cellar over the last five or six years - I don't always put up notes since nobody wants to see six notes on the same wine. This has gone from a luscious, brazen, tropical bomb through a period when oak was a bit too apparent to a graceful state now when I think it is drinking at its peak - vanilla-custard oak married with nicely eveolved fruit. There is something just a shade rustic and heavy-handed that stops it being an absolute star, but it is a lovely drink now. This half just about worth ****
  • Chardonnay 1992 (Cloudy Bay) I was expecting this to be rather past it - actually it has aged quite gracefully although fans of fruit might want to have drunk it sooner - even I might have enjoyed it more a year or two ago. Compared to a "slightly past its best Burgundy" there is not quite the same interest in its secondary and tertiary flavours. Pleasant though. **
  • Sauvignon Vin de Pays d'Oc 2000 (Dom des Fontanelles) Varietal, OK but a shade clothy. Decent No Stars
  • Gewurztraminer 2001 (Villiera) A rather good bargain bottle from South Africa: pretty much dry, but with a hit of exotic Gewurz fruit that some will think suggests sweetness. Nice balance: adequate acidity and just a hint of the pepper that helps keep the potential flab of the variety at bay. A top * at least.
  • Tokay Pinot Gris Vieilles Vignes 1994 (A. Mann) My penultimate bottle of a half-case I bought some years ago. It was quite flashy in its youth, but it has mellowed rather nicely while remaining a quaffing wine. Hard to put a name to the flavours (often is with this grape I think). Just about ***.
  • Cupidone Chasan 2000 (Hautes Terres de Comberousse) Chasan is apparently a cross between Chardonnay and Palomino (one of the Sherry varieties). I might place this in Italy blind, with its fairly dry, almondy fruit which doesn't have any particularly assertive flavours. Actually it is a Languedoc property that the Wine Society are selling. Decent balance - nice food wine. Top *
  • Pouilly-Fume 2000 (S. Dageneau) Very correct and drinkable. Good *
  • Riesling Vom Stein Federspiel 1998 (Nikolaihof) I drink a lot of wine, and for those evening when the palate is jaded, a top Wachau riesling is just the thing: bone-dry, zingy, mineral, stony fruit. It might yet improve but for now ***
  • Muscat Goldert 1989 (Zind-Humbrecht) This has been lurking in the cellar a while and I have been resisting opening it, expecting it might be past it (not the best of reasons, I admit). Well, I opened it and it was past it: not oxidised or anything, just a rather neutral "shell" around what was probably once reasonable fruit. No Stars
Tasting notes added to Fine Wine Diary 19/05/2002   Return to top

Wine groups at MM's 19/05/2002 (TNB)

Tasting notes added to Fine Wine Diary 19/05/2002   Return to top

09/05/2002 (RJB)

Tasting notes added to Fine Wine Diary 09/05/2002   Return to top

Domaine Tempier at Raeburn Fine Wines 09/05/2002 (TNB)

Tasting notes added to Fine Wine Diary 09/05/2002   Return to top

05/05/2002 (RJB)

Tasting notes added to Fine Wine Diary 05/05/2002   Return to top

A selection from the Great Grog company 05/05/2002 (TNB)

Tasting notes added to Fine Wine Diary 05/05/2002   Return to top