95+ tasting 2004

How to follow up the hit from last year? Rather early I decided that it would be risky to challenge this, and after some proposals from the tasters, I decided to try a more relaxed variant with a larger diversity of wines. A lot of styles and variants resulted in 4 flights:

The Champagne flight

96 points - 1990 Comtes de Champagne, Taittinger, France

The colour is dark yellow. The nose is rich from bread with a lovely stylish lemon fruit. Intense but elegant. The taste is also very stylish even if here is a lot of power and good citrus acidity. This wine was somewhat controversial depending how to judge the style. The school of grace had this as favourite  and judged as Parker, the school of power did find the elegancy not enough well supported by body and judged in the 92 - 93 area.

98 points - 1990 Bollinger R.D. (disgorged 20 February 2003), Champagne, France

The colour is dark yellow with a slight copper tone. Rich and generous with a lot of toast and yeast but not the most stylish champagne. Truly hedonistic in the taste, a lot of apples and acidity. The opinion was that this is not ready to drink. The judgement was very the same as previous wine with points between 92 and 96 with the difference that the high and low points were from the opposite tasters. The 98 points could not really be recognised for the moment.

The dry white flight

96 points - 2002 Chablis Vaillon vielle vigne des Minotes, Verget, France

The colour is plain yellow. A sturdy smell of bread and bitter, pear and citrus. Also some oak sweetness but with bitter almond touch, combined like marzipan. Brutally rich in the taste, fat with a noticeable acidity. Believed by some tastes to be Burgundy grand cru but hard for all to realise that this was Chablis premiere cru. All tasters impressed, including myself, with 95 - 96 points.

95 - 2000 Riesling Achleiten, Weingut Prager, Wachau Austria

The colour is deep yellow. The nose has shoe polish, wax and tropical sweet fruit. Somewhat bitter petroleum make it a typical young Riesling. In the taste it is fat, elegant and very attractive. Fore one reason or another one part of the tasters didn't like this and assigned around 93 points. The other part, headed by myself assigned 96 to 97 points.

96 - 1997 Haut Brion, Pessac Leognan, France

Deep yellow colour. Noisy and straggling smell from Sauvignon, but of a fat and generous type. A lot of herbs and green tones in both smell and taste. Two schools crystallized, one claiming that the taste was a bit too weak covered up by too much oak and judged it 92 - 93 points, while the other school (surprisingly including me) stands such lean crop in a beautiful 96 point wine.

95-98 - 2002 Peter Michael Winery Chardonnay Belle Cote, Sonoma, California

Medium yellow colour. Stearine and citrus in the smell, very pure, elegant and focused with sweet- and ripeness. Rich and clean, a long after taste with crisp vanilla oak. The debate was if this wine was to generous and sweet to be considered as a serious high quality wine. If so 93 points may do, otherwise around 97 points (also my figure).

98-100 - 1997 Cuvée l’Orée, Chapoutier, Hermitage, Rhone, France

Deep yellow colour. A bit dumb in the smell, some fatness of the oily kind and a hint of oranges and rosemary. Very creamy in the taste with a long after taste. This have been my benchmark white dry whine, but I didn't quite recognise the significant fatness. Has it closed down a bit or is it a poor bottle? The positive tasters found 96 to be appropriate and the "what is this" tasters did agree on 90 points (with the explanation that this is also a high point).

The red flight

95 - 1999 Petrolo Galatrona IGT, Petrolo, Tuscany, Italy

Very dark, ruby red. Bordeaux-feeling in the nose, some perfume, herbs and grass suggest Merlot oriented stuff. A really strong grip in hte mouth, high in acidity and tannin, and with adequate fruit. All were around 94 points for this wine.

96 - 2000 Aalto PS, Mariano Garcia, Ribera Del Duero, Spain

Very dark ruby red. Hard to recognise, a crossing of cabernet and shiraz? Ripeness and vanilla in addition. Also difficult to guess by the taste, it is a really good wine, tough and sturdy. Tempranillo was the clue. All agree between 94 and 97 points.

96 - 2001 Sine Qua Non Midnight Oil, Central Coast, California

Very dark, ruby red. This is an archetypical Côte Rôtie, elegant peppery shiraz with some perfumed Viognier. Also very good in the taste, clean but with character, fine acidity and round tannin, with some residual sugar. But the origin took some time to disclose. All agreed on 97 - 98 points, one of the best wines this evening. A strange thing is that this wine is considered as impossible to find, but here in Sweden it can be bought by case for 80€ / bottle.

96 - 1989 Ch. Angelus, St Emilion, Bordeaux, France

Dark brick red colour. Lovely grassy, mature, textbook Bordeaux. The same delicious feeling from hte taste, generous, lovely with a splendid complexity. 98 points from the "East, West, home is best" school, and 95 to 96 points from the other part questioning if the fatness is enough for 98 points.

The sweet white flight

96 - 1988 Climens, Barsac, Bordeaux, France

Deep yellow colour. Some "bear glue" reminds about Sauternes, also the worn out dish cloth, honey, and raw meat. Typical Sauternes in the taste, elegant and the lean type of Sauternes. A 96 point Climens is said to be like this, but a discussion lead by Håkan claimed that this vintage was not representative for Climens, and the 1986 would be far better. No sooner said than done, a bottle of 1996 Climens was brought to the table, see next item.

96 - 1986 Climens, Barsac, Bordeaux, France

Deep golden colour. A lot of "bear glue" suggest more botrytis than the 1988 vintage but the rest of the nose was about the same. And the taste was in fact a degree more concentrated like Håkan remembered it to be. The tasters agreed on 96 points for this 1986 vintage and when moving back to the 1988 vintage, "the more the better" school realised that it was a couple of points down.

99 - 1989 Tokay - Pinos Gris SGN, Jean-Babtiste Adam, Alsace, France

Golden colour. A bit dumb in the smell, a rather neutral fruit aroma, clean and nice and some oranges. Very clean also in the taste, sweet like candies. The debate of the evening followed when to try to assign a point to this wine. Some tasters, with Johan in lead, claimed that this is a simple "below 90" point wine while other tasters defended it with 96 to 97 points. My position is near the top, but maybe 95 points is enough.

95+ - 1995 Zweigelt Rosé, “Nouvelle Vague”, Kracher, Austria

Amber colour. Very fruity smell, apricot, mango and a burnt rubber. A good balanced wine, a lot of sugar and acidity. The negative thing is that the acidity is raw and pushy, making the wine tiresome to taste. The school disturbed by the acidity wasn't ready for more than 91 points, whilst the more durable tasters gave 95 points. Maybe this wine will benefit with a couple of decades in the cellar :-)

99 - N.V. Chambers Rosewood Vineyards Grand Muscat, Australia

Dark amber colour. Hot and spicy smell, clearly being fortified. Despite this a very smooth nose. The taste is strong, extravagant spicy and alcohol rich. Impressive for nearly all tasters, assigning 97 points.

Conclusions from this tasting

In theory I think we had a nice and strong line-up with, but with some clustering around 95-96 points. The diversity was unparalleled for 95+ with many types of wines, representation from over a dozen of different grapes and wines from all major wine countries.

Many tasters were very conservative in their judgement resulting in low points. Almost none of the wines got higher marks than Parker have given, and some wines were chopped down a dozen points below. At the end of the tasting, an analyses were discussed but no real cause was found. If scanning imaginable reasons, it might depend on: (Feel free to comment on this)

However, everyone agrees that this is one of the tastings of the year, so I was strongly encouraged to go on with the the 95+ tastings :-)