Kyoto Protocol VII

For the last of this round's Protocols, finally got to meet M.-san, J's wine-shop wunderkind (and who provided the Donati and the Munjebel, and was trying Musar for the first time.)


N.V. Donati Malvasia Frizzante - this was unusual! Is it lambic-ish? Maybe... a little... it's... it's... unusual! Not as severe, not as acidic, not as funky, but possibly just as elemental.

1993 R. López de Heredia Viña Tondonia Rosado - oddly, this is a touch less savoury than previous bottles. I'm wondering... could it possibly be on the downslope? I've proposed to Tinto that I bring my last bottle of this to the Heredia winemaker dinner, but I think they're declining. Hope that means they have too much wine already!


1995 Chateau Musar Blanc - so, last year, Serge Hochar said the '89 is the youngest wine that's ready to drink. I don't completely agree, but I can sort of understand - I think I really like it on release, it's got a bit of wildness, as it does when it gets older. This didn't seem to have that, a sort of dormancy. Well, dormant is relative for Musar, no? But then again, as J. suggested, pop and pour might not be the way to enlightenment here.

1995 Chateau Musar Rouge - J. called me mid-day after extraction, very concerned... "off?" he said. I suggested a decant, but J. declined. Well, when came over, I poured off a bit and thought... oh yeah! It might have been off in JUST the right way - yes, the '95 is usually very delicious, but in a clean sort of way. This had just a bit more of a funk-soul-brother edge to it, that just kept picking up. A super bottle, and I think it was pretty much unanimously the wine of the night. At least for myself and M.

2001/2002 Cornelissen Munjebel - if I've understood quickly, this is the first Munjebel release, right? Visually unsettled - cloudy, with a definite gray tinge (which kept turning - hello oxygen!), distinctly Musarian aromatics, but so much more tannic and ashy - as J. says, ETNA!


2007 Rietsch Passage - I'm going to say that the VJ descriptor J.'s been using doesn't do this justice - it is very much its own, lovely thing. Whereas VJ seems to be an almost overly demanding wine at times, this is very much for drinking.

2006 F.X. Pichler Grüner Veltliner Smaragd Dürnsteiner Kellerberg - I was a bit worried about this. Yes, this is F.X., yes, this is DK, the top of the pops, as it were. But it's also '06, I went in too heavy, I shoulda held out for '07 (colder, more classical). Well, step back, I've had really great '06s so far, maybe I've chosen exceptionally wisely? But after tasting '07 vs '08, very worried. No need to worry here! Superb Smaragd, superb fruit concentration, balanced against superb minerality, balanced against superb acidity. It brought to mind Roland Velich (Moric's) comments about triangularity - this was equilaterally balanced. Co-WOTN, for me.

2000 Produttori del Barbaresco Pora - I'm sure it's a very nice wine and all, but what a wallflower this was in this room full of extroverts.

To sum up, we finished off the Kracher from the other night, and popped all three Nøgne Ø sakes, the Yamahai Muroka Junmai, the Yamahai Nigori Nama Junmai, and the Yamahai Genshu Muroka Shiboritate Nama Junmai. And then... the singing began...