Fine food, terrific service, abundant conversation, and even more abundant wine marked the February installment of the Napa Forumites dinner, held last night at Celedon Restaurant in downtown Napa. With no wine theme for the evening, variety was clearly the order of the evening, and made for a tremendously enjoyable time. Here are my tasting notes to kick off the thread, I’m sure others will follow up with their impressions also. My dinner notes are sometimes rather sketchy, so keep this in mind.
2000 Didier Dagueneau Silex Pouilly-Fumé
light greenish tint, wonderful grassy nose with hints of pineapple. High acidity, yet terrific balance and a razor sharp focus, long finish for a Sauvignon. Made a fantastic pairing for the appetizer of steamed mussels.
2000 Kistler Dutton Ranch Chardonnay
This is the second time I have tasted this wine and continue to be tremendously impressed. Color is a somewhat cloudy golden, wonderfully expansive nose expressing rich mineral notes. Great focus and purity on the palate, with lemony richness. Very nice.
1998 Iron Horse “good luck” cuvee (Champagne – I may have the name slightly wrong)
Quite a nice bubbly! Good biscuity, toasty nose, very few yet very fine bubbles, rich in the mouth. Always a reliable producer, Iron Horse doesn’t disappoint.
2001 Melville Carries Block Pinot
My wine of the night! Lovely bright red color, excellent (big!) pinot nose showing terrific floral notes along with some chocolate. On the palate it is lush and smooth, showing ripe cherries and violet, the full rich flavors coating the mouth and leading to a long finish. Excellent.
2000 Kistler Sonoma Coast Pinot
This was a very interesting wine, and left me wishing we had decanted it early in the evening, as it really began to evolve wonderfully as the night went on. At first this wine had a fairly reluctant, yet very nice nose showing nice chocolate notes, but not a lot of Pinot character. Later in the dinner it had evolved to become much more expressive. Very rich, extracted PN, a very “friendly” wine. I loved it, but the Carries showed better.
2000 Iron Horse Corral Vineyard Pinot
A wow nose of spicy fruit, turns a little thin on the palate, but was a very good nonetheless.
2000 Numanthia Toro
Yes, the Numanthia that is all the rage lately. I brought this one, as I really wanted to give it a try. I decanted it at 10:30 am, rebottled at 1:00, then decanted at about 5:45 before tasting about 6:30ish. The nose on this wine is nothing less than outstanding, showing anise, spice, and ripe berries. On the palate I found the tannins to be slightly drying, this is not a fruit bomb by an means, but is more restrained. I think it has a lot of potential, but for now I would rate this a ‘90’. This went really well with food, btw.
2000 Tamarak Du Brul Reserve
I really liked this wine, and it was my #2 of the night, but I didn’t take much in the way of detailed notes except that it had a great nose showing nice cedar notes.
Also represented:
1995 Staglin Cab – Corked
2001 Dr. Loosen Riesling – Great, but I didn’t get the details on the exact bottle, I’ll let GATC fill in the details on this one.
Had a great time!
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