Tasting notes: part I

This is going to be a work in progress as I have been taking tasting notes since January with the idea of posting them here. Doing them all at once would eat up huge amounts of time, so they will appear in bits and pieces here.

I will shamelessly rip off Michael Broadbent's 5-star rating system -- 0 is white zinfandel, 5 is Latour 1982 -- but with a catch. For many years the capsule movie reviews in The New York Times' TV listings would refer to a horror movie or Western -- genre films with lower ambitions than a Kurosawa film, in other words -- in praiseworthy tones followed by the words "good of its kind". So, while the 0-5 stars does generally reflect overall quality, it should noted that I may well give a Chenas or Muscadet or the like a high rating, which does not mean it is "as good as" Lafite Rothschild or Dom Perignon, but that it is "good of its kind". The commentary will make things clear, I would suspect. Stars in () mean what an age-worthy wine might wind up being.

So here we go:

Vacqueyras Domaine Mas Du Bouquet 2004: Best part about this bottle was the bottle, a nicely embossed "Vacqueyras" crest above the label and a silver sticker indicating a prize won at the 2005 Concours des Grands Vins de France in Macon. Must have been a small field at that contest. I should have known better with this one, featured in the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board store in Doylestown, Pa., at $13 with a glowing writeup. But every so often the LCB stumbles into a quality bargain so, thought I, why not, as I generally like the peppery, vivacious and gutsy wines of this AOC and its neighbor Gigondas. Why? would be the better question. This one is a real dog, easily the lamest wine from Vacqueyras I have ever had: thin, bitter, unpleasantly sharp, little aroma, and next to finish. Far too hot and heavy (14.5 percent alcohol), swamping the fruit, if any there was. Absolutely unpleasant. And not improved by air -- in my glass for 90 minutes, tasted flat and lifeless and I poured 1/3 of it down the drain. Avoid! (With anise-flavored short ribs at my mother's house, Avalon, N.J., 4/2007) 1/2*

Pouilly-Fuisse Rijckaert 2005: Under a screwcap, unquestionably the first Burgundian AOC wine I have ever seen so handled. As part of this was used for cooking, it was convenient, and who ages Maconnais whites anyway (though if you were, Pouilly-Fuisse might be the one you would)? Refreshing and pleasant, no oak in sight (or smell), with pineappley and grapefruit flavors amid the general Maconnais crispness. More aroma as it warmed, sleek and light on the tongue, a hint of peach on the finish. Perfect match for my chicken in a lemon-leek sauce. A touch pricey at $18, but: 1) that is an Avalon (i.e., Jersey Shore) price and is probably $2-3 more than it would be in New York and 2) Pouilly-Fuisse is no longer a bargain wine: the LCB gets $33 (!) for one bottle of it and it's not common under $20 anywhere. If the liquor store in Avalon keeps carrying it, this one will reappear in these notes over the summer (With chicken in a lemon-leek sauce at my mother's house, Avalon, N.J., 4/2007) ***

Champagne Pol Roger NV: Look, when I walk into a restaurant in New York (TriBeCa, would you believe) and see this -- my all-time favorite bubbly, to my mind the best, most consistent non-vintage made and a classic among classic -- on the wine list at $40 I am getting it, and I don't care what I am eating. Having had two enormous martinis before this late dinner -- we sat down at 1:25 a.m. -- may have made my impulse buy more likely but I suspect I'd have gotten it under any circumstances. Oddly, it had very little mousse at all and distinctly few bubbles, and we were concerned the bottle was off. But no: most of the Pol lushness and all of the classiness was still there, that yeasty, bready zing to go with structure and citrus and then that crisp finale that says Pol Roger, though, true, with a hint of bitterness. Sure, I'd have liked more bubbles, but the wine was fine. We hypothesized that the bottle was an older one that had been around (well-stored) for a while, which might explain the bubbly's lack of, well, bubbles. And it coped well with my seafood meal. At this price, a grand steal; this restaurant's wine policy prices bottles at just a few dollars more than they'd cost in a store and should be imitated around the U.S. Maybe not the best Pol I have ever had, but no regrets. (With grilled octopus and mussels in pesto at Landmarc, TriBecCa, New York, 3/2007) ****

More to come !