We opened, on average, more than 1.5 bottles a night this year, which means we drank 550 bottles; we probably bought another 50 in restaurants; we probably attended tastings, professionally and in winemaker’s homes, and drank another 150 wines.
So, in total, we tasted at least 750 wines. And another 150 Madeiras in May.
Them’s a lot of wines: 900 bottles.
And despite this grand total, the stand-outs, the memorable wines, only number a few.
And this be them in 2017....
2002 Heitz Cellar, Martha’s Vineyard
Good friends brought this bottle to dinner in our home at which we served a perfectly grilled bistecca alle fiorentina.
You can talk all you want about wine perfection, but if you want to taste it, you should have been at the table when we drank this wine.
A magical, memorable wine, perfectly balanced, harmonious, providing gorgeous Cabernet scents on the nose, and delivering ripe, red ripe fruit flavors, violets, and an ethereal undertow of cassis on the palate.
The wine showed a finesse and elegance which is rare in Napa Valley Cabernets, which too often push the envelope with alcohol, have too much gushy, forward fruit and excessive oak. Not this wine; this bottle showed all the greatness, which Joe Heitz, who founded the winery, imparted in his wines.
Joe was one of the first artisans in the California wine industry and the first producer to recognize the concept of “single vineyard” wines. 100 points.
2005 Mauro Molino Barolo, Vigna Conca
Was this wine magical because we drank it in one of my favorite Italian towns, Alba, or was it the company, my sweet wife, Carol, of 45 years, or was it, by chance, just a near-perfect bottle of wine?
Dunno. But it sure was a thrill-a-sip wine.
One of my go-to gurus on Piemontese wine told me that just about anything Mauro Molino produces is great.
“His 1990 Barolo is one of the top five Barolos I’ve ever tasted in my life,”my friend Josh told me, and as beverage buyer, wine-server, and former sommelier in 1- and 3-star Michelin restaurants, he has tasted a LOT of Barolos.
The 2005 Mauro Molino throws off sweet cherry bottom notes, a sort of scaffolding for other flavors to tower over as the wine gains air.
This wine exhibits elegance, finesse, supreme balance. At 12 years of age, the wine is already beautifully sculptured; it is generously endowed with texture, middle palate flavors and a gorgeous finish.
After 30 minutes in the glass, there are curious, but delicious, hints of cinnamon, allspice and exotic spices from the East.
“Luscious, rich, lubricious, “ are three words I found in the margin of my notes when I returned to Napa Valley. 97 points.
2009 Cavallotto Bricco Boschis, Vigna San Giuseppe
Oh my, another near-perfect wine, enjoyed with a meal highlighted with a rich shaving of fresh white truffles in one of our favorite restaurants anywhere, Dell’Arco, in Alba, Italy.
This wine gripped our senses, demanded we pay attention to its charm, richness, allure and depth. A stunning example of superb wine-making. There was an immediate release of fresh ripe red fruits on the nose and palate; followed by rich and deep traces of root vegetables and truffles. An amazing near syrupy-like texture that is so unknown in Barolo circles; this is a wow! wine of richness, complexity, and deliverance. 99 points.
1998 Chateau Trotanoy
Our family gathered for Thanksgiving. To complement Carol’s perfectly prepared, oven-roasted turkey, I opened a magnum of 1998 Chateau Trotanoy, which Carol had given to me on my 60th birthday, many years ago.
The 1998 Trotanoy, 95% Merlot, 5% Cab Franc, was nothing short of ethereal.
The wine was magnificent, filled with lusty top and bottom notes, ushering a sequence of flavors into our collective mouth -- loads of cherry, chocolate and blackberry, all anchored with supple notes of rich, silky violet. A near-perfect wine. 99 points.
FYI: Upon the commercial release of this wine, the producer, Claude Berrouet, said that this vintage was, in his opinion, “one of the best Trotanoy’s ever produced.” I have to agree with him -- #whatawine!
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE....
In May of this year, Carol and I spent eight days on the Atlantic island of Madeira, where some of the world’s most alluring, exotic, and, for sure, most age-worthy wines are produced. I have tasted Madeiras, which are 222-years-old, produced in the 1700s, and they are still vibrant, fresh, youthful, complex, and even riveting!
I would be remiss if my year-end Best Wines compilation failed to incorporate some of the top wines I tasted during my sojourn on Madeira. And they include the following:
1954 Henriques & Henriques Malvasia. Sipping this wine is like setting fireworks off in your mouth – your palate lights up with small explosions of taste; there are explosive, juicy, coffee, toffee and burnt sugar notes, a profound undercurrent of acid runs through the performance. It’s like the end-of-night fireworks at Disneyland going off in your mouth. Gob-smacking glorious! 97 points.
1957 Henriques & Henriques, Boal
There is such perfect balance and harmony in this wine, a mellifluous yin and yang of sweetness and acidity, with top notes of orange, orange zest and tangerine running wild along the entire length of the taste and swallow; you can’t spit this wine out in a tasting – impossible! 96 points.
Barbeito 30-year-old Malvasia, Vo Vera, of which there are only 612 bottles in the whole world.
Winemaker and Madeira blender extraordinaire at Barbeito, Ricardo Diogo Freitas, says that he thinks his 30-year-old Malvasia Vo Vera is “the best single wine I have ever made in my entire life,” which is like having Stephen Curry identify which of his hundreds of 3-point shots from center court is his best career dunk.
Ricardo calls this “a wine of precision.” I call it a tour de force. You can’t put more wine into a wine. 100 points.
This beauty sings, dances and spins plates on pointy sticks -- all at the same time. If Ed Sullivan were still alive and on the air, this wine would be the headliner act for his Sunday night TV broadcast.
Barbeito 1863 Boal
This was another high scoring wine of the 17, which I tasted at Barbeito, a profound expression of winemaking skill. A legendary wine.
This wine had been in the same cask for 145 years when, in 2008, it was transferred to a demi-john. The wine was bottled in February of this year.
If you want Impeccable wine with a capital I – this is it. Also a 100-pointer.
Blandy’s, one of the larger, old-family producers on the island of Madeira, has been making wine for 206 years. You’d expect them to have figured out how to make great wine over such a long period. And they have.
One of my favorite wines of my entire eight-day visit to the island of Madeira in May was a rather young wine, only 97 years old.... the Blandy’s 1920 Bual.
How good was this wine? My tasting notes read:
“Coffee, coffee, coffee on the nose, with some toffee thrown in for good measure. The nose alone goes on for a minute!
There is a core of delicate, persistent acidity, which runs the entire length of the taste experience; it is wrapped in a blanket of treacle and orange zest. The finish lingers for a long time and ends with echoes of fresh coffee grounds and a squeeze of lime.”
As there are now no more 750 mL bottles of this magical, wine at the winery, we will have to wait until Blandy’s fills bottles with what remains of this wine in demi-johns. And believe me, it ain’t much.
In fact, getting ready for this occasion, Chris Blandy, head of the family business, told me that he aims to bottle all remaining stock of the 1920 Boal now in glass demi-johns three years hence, in 2020, for the 100th anniversary of this wine, and then release it. Chris: Put me down for a 6-pack! 98 points.
The Cossart Gordon 1987 Bual (actually a Blandy’s-owned label), was bottled in 2016 after spending 29 years in a large wooden barrel.
Although still a baby, this wine presents a stunning mouthful of complexity and restraint. This is a gorgeous and elegant wine. It shows a balance typically reserved for bank ledgers, which is to say precise. It also shows that you don’t have to seek out a 100- or 200-year-old Madeira to be knocked to your knees in Hosannas of ecstasy. 98 points.
One of my favorite winery visits on Madeira was to D’Oliveira, where my tongue was clacking and my head spinning from tasting 32 Madeiras spanning three centuries in one day.
Two of the stand-out wines for me are included here as among the very best wines I tasted all year:
1928 D’Oliveiras Sercial.
Bottled in 2008, when the wine was 80 years old.
Aromas of freshly roasted espresso beans, mandarin oranges and orange zest tweaked my nose and followed through on the palate. Peerless balance and a brilliant acidity, which stretched out the flavor components long after the swallow (this was not a wine to spit out). My personal favorite, top wine of the day-long tasting. 100 points.
What I tasted during my visit to D’Oliveira, plus three other wines, which failed to make the photoshoot!
1875 D’Oliveiras Moscatel.
Bottled in the late 1970s, when the wine was already 100 years old.
The bottle we tasted from had been opened 18 days earlier to help bring some life to this oldster!
A tremendous beverage, filled with top notes of chocolate and bottom notes of cocoa; the finish was so long that if it were a ball game, it would have been into extra innings. Could this be the Holy Grail of Madeira? 100 points.
Happy holidays to all readers. Please come back to napaman.com in the New Year for new food and wine discoveries -- what makes Napa Valley (and me!) tick.
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