Thursday, March 19th, 2009
Viognier tastes like a lover who falls asleep too early. The flavors are both half-pregnant and overdone. No matter which fruit or flower you taste it will be at least wilted, chalky, heavy, or wrinkled.
In most Viogniers, I taste wilted flowers, dried apricots, dried lavender, and creamy egg nog (if oaked well). In this Viognier I taste apricot flesh, chalky skin (or dried milk powder), and mildewy lavender… or in other words, it tastes like an old house with new curtains.
That’s exactly what it is, too… a 2,000 year old grape planted in an entirely incorrect region in southern France; Viognier is traditionally grown in the Northern Rhone right beside Syrah vines, and this bottling sees it pulling a Kerouac down to Languedoc where it roasted in the heat and was plucked just a bit too early to fully blossom. It smells very much like a baby in a flower shop instead of a woman in a field of wild flowers.
Of course this “baby” is exactly 4x less expensive than the last woman I met in a field of flowers so I’ll just sit back quietly and enjoy a pretty darn nice glass of wine.
France, Langeudoc, Old World, Viognier, Wine Reviews | No Comments
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008
Begin smoking a cigar. Pour yourself a bowl of cherries, strawberries, and currants. Bake a pecan pie. Then put out the cigar in the bowl of fruit, stick the ashy end back in your mouth and stick your head in the oven. Then of course pour the entire experience into a bottle and you will understand what it is like to drink this wine.
A little bit of the wine is aged for a very long time in very small oak barriques so that both the smoke and the fruits are very true and complete. Save this wine for nights when you don’t have much to think about other than your wine and the people you’re drinking it with.
$16.99 at T.B. Ackerson 8.1/10
France, Langeudoc, T.B. Ackerson Wines, Wine Reviews | No Comments
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008
Most people will like this wine far more than I do. It has a dark blue and black fruits with a texture similar to that of flowers covered in damp, black soil and morning dew. The grapes are grown in a single-vineyard so its respect to terroir is great indeed. Almost everyone should give this wine a try- so far everyone but myself has loved it. I guess the feeling I get from it is “complexity without excitement.”
50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, and 20% Syrah from southern France (Languedoc - possibly the most value-oriented area of France).
$16.99 at T.B. Ackerson 6.5/10.
Cabernet Sauvignon, France, Langeudoc, Merlot, Syrah, T.B. Ackerson Wines, Wine Reviews | No Comments