By: AJ McClellan
Great beginning to the day! The 2009 Leroy d’Auvenay les Narvaux is a experience in a glass, absolutely amazing! Toasted popcorn with corn nuts leap from the glass, exploding on the nose. The toast is so powerful it is hard to pick out the other nuances but if you look very hard you can find candied lemon rind, gram cracker, and green apple. The palate is complex and powerful with the toast taking lead, paving the way for hints of minreality, sharp fruit, and bitter nut skin. This wine is extremely primary right now, but with sometime in the bottle there is no doubt in my mind it will be one of the stars in any collection.
After some great Burgundy and some excellent Rhone where else is there to go other than Bordeaux? This 99 Latour is just superb out of the bottle. I decanted it for 30 min and the nose is showing beautiful notes of purple Pez with blueberry and purple flowers. The palate is bold and well structured but the tannins are on the edge of being velvety. Great length on the plate with beautiful bright fruit, hints of graphite, and some dark earth… Watch out when popping this wine because it is throwing tons of sediment.
Taking the plunge! Another taste of the 04 unico. This wine is showing much like last week. A solid Spanish beauty! The 98 d’Auvenay Is richer and creamier than the 09 but there is still a good amount of toast with bright lemon, key lime pie, limestone, and hints ok kiwi… The plate is mineral driven with a toasty oak note of shaved vanilla bean.