Viva la Sweet.

I had the pleasure of attending a lengthy tasting this afternoon featuring wines from the AXA Millésimes – a branch of an insurance company fond of finer wines as well as portfolio diversity. This tasting was a challenge, as similar to a certain port tasting, I faced the danger of developing diabetes from all the sugar. Here are my notes with minimal editing.

Disznókő Dry Furmint 2005
Dry Hungarian
Understated – some mineral, faint fruit. Moderately acidic. Sugarless – more floral/aromatic – no sugar. Not great.

Chateau Pibran 2003
Pauillac – 70% Merlot / 30% Cabernet Sauvignon
Nose – spicy, underripe berries. Low on tannin, possibly thin body. Needs to cellar? Great finish, exploding spice, although short. Tannins not supported.

Chateau Pichon Baron 2002
Pauillac – 65% Cabernet / 35% Merlot
Bigger nose. Spice/Earth – much larger wine (still lighter than expected), more tannic, long finish. The fruit is low in the mix – “finesse.” –

Chateau Pichon Baron 2003
[wine omitted from tasting for lack of availability]

Castelnau de Suduiraut 2001
Nose – honey/nectar/sour tartar sauce (or mayonnaise?) – developing to fingernail polish. Quite sweet, oily feel. Acidity is present but overwhelmed. Mellow pear/honey.

Chateau de Suduiraut 2003
Lighter on nose and palate (less chemical). Less weight, less sugar. Acidity is more forward.

Chateau de Suduiraut 2000
Crystals. Subtle/sweet. Even less chemical. Balanced with a tiny spice (balanced acidity). 30% new oak.

Disznókő 6 putts 2000
Tokaji
Lighter. Brighter fruit, honey (sugar?) Fresh – no oak. Flower petal in fruit and sweeter melon – apricot. Well grounded finish. Aging on lees adds structure.

Noval 10 year old Tawny
Brown. Carmel/molasses. Aged style, fruit is quite subtle, (light) molasses style brown sugar.

Noval 2000
Very dark, bzg nose of “red wine” – large, fruit, spice, bit’o’sugar. Plenty of sediment. Maybe too rich.

Like I said, I felt like I was going to get diabetes from all this sugar. The Bordeaux were somewhat unsatisfying, too light in body for their larger tannins and noticeable oakey spice, almost as if they were unsupported and unbalanced. All three vintages of the Sauternes had a chemical quality that certainly was not alcohol, though nobody else in the room seemed to scrunch up their noses as I did. I even checked the nose on a friend’s glass, to be sure whatever it was wasn’t soap residue in my glass. Aside from the chemical odor, the wine was good, though perhaps a bit thick.

The Tokaji was a welcome change, a little more structured and fresh though it didn’t have the same qualities of, well, quality. The two ports were extremes – the tawny had almost no real richness to speak of aside from brown sugar (though that sounds too harsh, I really did like it) and the 2000 vintage was (I’m assuming) in a ‘dead period’ – too much body with very little sweetness. The good qualities of port were eclipsed by too much standard red wine flavor.

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Before heading to the tasting, I managed to try some Austrian wines – a white blend (good), a gruner veltliner (very good), a strange red (not so good), and a fantastic Austrian ice wine, which frankly, I much preferred over the sweeter wines I would go on to taste later in the afternoon.

Which makes me think. I surely wouldn’t have remarked on these Austrian wines (not blogwise, anyway) had I not taken the time to mention this other tasting. I haven’t posted in almost three months, but I taste wines several times a week. While this is mainly a problem of short-term memory and of lacking the opportunity for taking notes, it’s also a function of language and my own self-criticism. What is there to say about all these wines? They’re all really variations on a theme, balancing different chemical influences, varietal characteristics, and regional tendencies to make something unique beyond the infinite yet finite limitations of the English language, even after the expansion of the language in the form of ‘wine talk’ as well as the systematic stealing of other languages’ words (No word in English means terroir? How about using the word ‘terroir’?). The compensation for this real lack of descriptors can often turn into overly poetic descriptions – but in my case, of wines that don’t quite inspire poetry.

I guess what I’m getting at is that I don’t have a lot to say because in choosing among the options of systematic repetition, poetic hyperbole and silence, I tend to lean toward silence.