By: Ryan Tedder
The dog days of summer are quickly approaching here at Graileys. How do we beat the heat? We sit inside our wine cave in frigid AC drinking rich wines from all around. It was quite a line-up of great juice and a number of members decided to stop by and share some great wines with each other.
One of our favorite vendors stopped by and started it off right with a bottle of Joseph Drouhin, Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru, 1998 that was singing. Corton Charlies are normally prime candidates for Premox but this wine was as clean, powerful version of this majestic wine! Layer after layer of golden power, hazelnut, marzipan, baked golden delicious apples, honeysuckle and limestone power. I wine of character, a sense of place and plenty of age left in it.
Next we did a duo of 2011 Willamette Valley Pinots. 2011 was a wetter colder vintage for Oregon and grapes struggled to fully ripen. There is a swath of mediocre wine out there. True to Graileys form we found two of the absolute best expressions of the vintage. Both are from Yamhill-Carlton but tasted very different. The 2011 Ken Wright Nysa Vineyard was all reds flowers and wild red fruits with round, sweet tannins. The fruits were strawberries, red raspberries, wild red berries and roses. The 2011 Merriman Estate was a completely different animal. It was darker, plumper, and richer. Black raspberries, black cherries, rhubarb, macerated strawberries, wet leaves, turned soil and dried roses complimented the lush mid-palate and somewhat spicy finish. A real rock start of a 2011 Oregon Pinot Noir!
We followed these with a great, albeit young red Burg. The 2010 Bouchard Volnay 1er Cru, Caillerets, Ancienne Cuvee Carnot was initially closed and needed a good decant or three for it to come to life. This is a single plot of 70 to 80 year old vines in one of the best premier crus in Volnay. They put new French oak on this wine because it has the stuffing to take it and will last for 20+ years. The nose led with toasty oak spice notes and coffee bean. The macerated black cherries, pomegranite, dried roses, truffle and gravelly minerality came with coaxing. This is such a youngster but wow-the finish went for a full minute once it had enough air and time to breath.
Syrah followed and you could not get two different expressions of this noble grape. The 1990 Chapoutier Ermitage Le Pavillon is a 100-pointer is was loaded with loads of funky Rhone character. Black licorice and dried fennel, creme de cassis, grilled toast, blackberry compote, roast beef, fresh cracked pepper and road tar oozed from this wine with a little aeration. The power and finish in the wine was unbelievable. The 2008 Sine Qua Non B-20 Syrah is a black beast of a wine. Saturated black, purple and blue fruits bordering on jam and preserves were framed by lifted acidity, lovely violets and black roses, fudge, and bitter chocolate with a full throttled mouth-filling finish that lasted for the rest of the night.
The last dichotomy of the evening was the 1993 Etude Cabernet Sauvignon which tasted like a somewhat sweeter version of a classic St. Estephe-brambly black fruit, cassis, turned potting soil, dried black cherries and stoic power. The 2006 Colgin Cariad in contrast was like a young riper version of Lafite. The wines of Colgin possess an opulence and rich balance attained by few wines in Napa-let alone the world. It tasted like a jack-hammer on granite-brooding big black fruits-quite a mouth experience! The tannins were well developed and the wine was drinking in an exceptional window. It definitely tastes like a Cali Grand Cru – it is a blend of Abreu’s Madrona Ranch and Thorevilos vineyards.