After a
short “creative (or sluggishness)” break, I’ll try to convey some Olympic Spirit to you guys out there! In the
limelight it got to be wine from Greece! What else?! It is the Gaia
Estate Assyrtico Wild Ferment 2010 from Santorini and two late nominations from
Burgundy and
Pfalz.
Gaia Estate Assyrtico Wild Ferment 2010, Santorini
The grapes
for today’s headliner were grown on the upland vineyard of Pyrgos on Santorini Island, infected by wild yeast strains
and fermented/aged in new French oak barrels. Its colour seemed rather
bright-silver’ish-yellow and pretty fresh: At first the nose showed fragrances
of lemongrass, green spice, strong freshness and slightly unripe walnuts. After
3 to 4 hours a lot of elegance evolved and a nutty-lemon nose combo showed.
It reminded me uncannily of Puligny-Stuff! Maybe with a bit more spice. The
taste was far different. At first! I got quite a lot of stern oak flavours, pithily
style, assorted unripe nuts, strong and not so gentle acid, green lemons, slightly melonish, grated nutmeg, diffuse green spices and maybe some petrol. Pretty
lean body and limited length. Approx. 5 hours later far more attributes of Chardonnay-like
flavours and class evolved. Only close to alike! The strong fresh acid, lean structure and green spicyness were far more
powerful and somehow gently-harsh, than a Burgundy Chardonnay (for example). I
guess this certain French Associationism (on my behalf) might come from the
skilful applied French oak. Whatever, that’s just me – very unique and tasty
wine with a lot of aging potential. OK, potential might be one problem. No wine quality
problems, only plastic problems in the neck of a bottle! Why? I will never
understand that!
The day before I had two totally dissimilar Chardonnays from France and Germany:
Maison
Chanson Père & Fils Meursault 2007, Meursault
Ok, I
really don’t want to waste your precious time! So I’ll keep it short: The
colour seemed pretty regular and fresh. The bouquet wasn’t that pleasurable. I
guess I got impressions of pulp mixed with lemon juice, lime, seaweed and later
some cheese-like scents. The taste was very acidic, got lemon-caramel, decent
oak, strange Camembert cheese’iness, light nuts, seemed somehow artificially
constructed and a bit rather light as well as simple in structure. Surely more
than just drinkable, but pretty disappointing for a wine from my preferred Chardonnay
appellation!
Weingut
Knipser Chardonnay Barrique **** 2005, Pfalz
As already
mentioned a totally different story! A totally modern, new-world’ish, intriguingly
fruitful and hyper complex Chardonnay! The colour was gold medal golden! The
nose seemed scented with graceful and spicy oak, showed tons of profoundly
strong yellow fruits, quite a lot of exotic ones, candied lemon peel and later even some stony mineral’ish
attributes. A very memorable nose! The taste was super fruitful, lush, exotic,
absolutely not alcoholic and very broad. This liquidized eclectic and exotic
fruit salad leaped right into my face and bit my palate. Pure gentle power
combined with length and complexity! Very lively and invigorating acid. This
and the gently integrated alcohol differs this Pfalz Chardonnay from so many of
his New World brothers! Infinitely quaffable and
long lasting! Normally not really my shoe of Chardonnay! Oh I better shut up! Really
fantastic fruit juice!!!
Now the
Medal Ceremony:
Gold Medallist:
The powerful artistic gymnastics all-arounder Chardonnay from Knipser!
Silver
Medallist: The juvenile and well defined 400 metre runner Assyrtico Wild
Ferment!
(Barley) Bronze
Medallist: The Worn Out 1500 m Swimmer Meursault from Chanson!
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