I have a couple of bottles of 1988 Philipponnat 'Clos de Goisses' that I plan to open Christmas morning.

Christmas Eve I have a few different 90's Barolo's to open: Clerico, A. Conterno, and I think Ceretto, but not sure.

oh man, if you get the chance, I'd love to see some tasting notes on the barolos and especially the philipponnat

I thought we were having dinner here for Christmas Eve, but unbeknownst to me, we went to a big family friends dinner. HELLO CHEAP SPANISH!

But, the Phillipponnat 1988, "Clos de Goisses":

First of all, although I love my Champagne, I haven't drank enough back vintage to really 'know' it, like I do some other regions/style. With that said, this is it:

I first popped it with breakfast (eggs, avocado, onion, blue de basques cheese). The nose was beautiful: spicy and sweet at the same time, some light berries, lots of citrus and nutty.

Taste: Very, very tart/overly citrus that was really overpowering everything else. Finish went forever though. Needed a lot of time to open. I told everybody not to touch it for a while.

We slowly drank it over the next 4 - 5 hours, with every glass becoming that much better. The tartness leveled off to reveal a muscular, mineral laden, lemon/honey/nutty infused beautiful Champagne. Powerful. The carbonation was definitely quite slow after all of this time and wasn't that visual. You could still feel it quite strongly on your tongue though.

I have another bottle that I plan to open soon. I'm thinking it would be amazing with some combination of Pork (or not overly gamey, "game")/mushrooms/pinenuts.

Reading on their website, it says that you shouldn't be afraid to decant it, which I will definitely do next time.

Im a pretty big wine noob but would like to get into it more. What woudl be a good pairing with seafood like shirmp, fish, oysters? Thanks.

great notes. I'm glad you spent some quality time with it as people just chug down champagne so fast(I'm fully guilty of this as I love it so much and it generally doesn't last long in my presance)

I also need to drink more mature champagne. I've generally had them young and the oldest one I had was a 90 Henriot Milesmie at a trade tasting, but its so hard to really get much from a situation like that. I'll add that to my wine goals this year


Champagne/sparkling wine is a great pairing. Riesling is also a good pairing with fish and a lot of white burgs are great with fish and oysters. A good amount of california chards will work with lots of fish too. those are the ones I can think of right now, and I'm sure that others will be able to come up with more ideas

For oysters specifically: Sauvignon Blanc (less oak the better), Riesling, Sparkling, Viognier.

we had some great desert wine for new years, Banyuls La douceur des terroirs 2004. exactly like you would expect with notes of cherries, figs, chocolate, toasted nuts. i thought it was a lot cleaner taste than lots of the ports ive had in the past so i thought it was amazing.

I was lucky enough to have a bottle of Opus One(2000) this weekend and it was fantastic. Was pretty perfect as far as I could tell, very nice long length and the perfect texture. One of the most incredible and wide ranging aromas in any wine. Nice sweet balance of tannins, I couldn't find anything wrong with it.

Nice thread! Btw, you guys should give a try on the Portuguese reds from the Douro valley...

Cheers

Pikes 2007 Claire Valley Riesling:

WAY over delivers for price point. Haven't had many Claire Valley Rieslings, but this one kicked serious ass. I think it's a nice blend between Germany (sweet) and Alsace (dry).

Anyway, lots of citrus (grapefruit, lemon, lime), some floral notes. Maybe some pear. Lots of fruit to balance out the acidity. Goes on a long time. Would be amazing in 5-6 years but delicious now. I think i'm going to pick up a case to set down. Delicious.

i fully agree, I just need to find more still portugese reds. My store doesn't really carry that many, and there's only so much vintage port that one can drink.hopefully I'll be able to come across some more this year


great stuff. IMO aussie riesling is horribly under rated and I definitely need to get more familiar with a lot of



I need a bit of help on deciding what to drink and eat saturday night. UFC is gonna be on and I generally like to do some sort of food and wine pairing. I'll let people pick what I either eat or drink and will pair off the other. so, if there's a region you want me to play guinea pig on, I'm down with that or if you want to see what something you like to eat would pair well with, I'll gladly work that too. I won't go super high end on either hte food or wine since my normal friends that would join me are gonna be out of town, but I won't bottom feed either. So, what say you EDF?

I know this is the wine thread and all but whiskey really seems a lot more appropriate for something as barbaric as UFC.

Wine: Do off-beat Italy. Salice Salentino, Primitivo di Manduria, Ciro, Sagrantino, Aglianico, Verdicchio, Vermentino, etc.

Really interesting, great value, and some superb offerings.

Agreed, I don't know why you'd go with anything besides some beam for UFC.

Absolutely love Portugese table wines. Probably one of my top regions actually, simply because for under $20 you can drink a kick ass serious wine and for over $40 you can be floored. I also love Vinho Verde's in summer.

well, whiskey wouldn't really work as in a sense beer would be more appropriate, but that's not what I'm asking

This was an option I had been thinking of before hand. Hopefully some more people will chime in with useful suggestions


why not go with whatever you want for whatever you want to watch. Not really the point. I'm just trying to get some people to do some thinking and let me be a guinea pig or whatever

Yeah I understand, but a food and wine pairing for UFC just seems hilarious.

how so?

cause food and wine are commonly associated with still reflection, relaxation, intellectualism and not testosterone, adrenaline and screaming at the telly?

why should it be that way. wine should be fun, not something to prop oneself up into a different intellectual realm. There is a time and place for serious wine drinking, I do it on a frequent basis with some of my tasting groups. But, my point for this is to have fun and emphasize that fact, and also point out that wine shouldn't always be serious, its an alcoholic beverage when you get down to it

If one wants to cut themselves off from the world and put themselves on a different level when drinking wine, that's their perogative, but my purpose in creating this thread is to get good discussion about wine, and to also pull back the sheet a bit that makes people not as willing to get into wine.

Saying that it is hilarious that one would want to watch UFC while drinking wine and eating food IMO is keeping that shield up that prevents people from getting into wine. So what if they want to watch something like football or fighting while drinking wine, the point is that the wine is being enjoyed

To each his own, but it is just so stupid. You can defend it, but i agree with luego.

new acquisitions this week:

mollydooker carnival of love 2005
mollydooker enchanted path 2005
ridge monte bello 1999
chateau montelena cab 2004
pio cesare barolo 2004

The 2004 cabernet is really nice. I kind of like menthol-y wines and it is definitely there. It's a good value and when I don't feel like shelling out the absurd price that they charge for cakebread cab, I usually go with that and benzinger for my mid-range cabs.

If you get the chance, try and get some Altamura Cabernet 2005 (or 2004.. I like the 2005 better though). It is outstanding. It's everything you want a California Cabernet to be: huge fruit, amazingly velvety mouth but still has a lot of tannins... it's simply amazing and one of my favourite Cali Cab's of all time.

What makes it stupid? That some people don't solely associate wine with "stuffiness" (for lack of a better word).

FYI, Wine is now the most popular alcoholic beverage in the US, surpassing beer.