Join us tomorrow, Saturday, December 16 from 2:-30-4:30 p.m. to explore the world of port! Elaine Grenier from C&G Wines will be here to explain about a range of ruby and tawny ports and pour samples. Come learn, taste, and select some ports to enjoy over the winter. And choose a fantastic gift for a port enthusiast!
Legendary and Gift-Worthy Red Wines: In addition to our old vintages of Rioja, port, and Madeira wines, our collectible wine selection includes a rare wine with a perfect, 100 point score from the Wine Advocate!
2013 Clos i Terrasses Clos Erasmus Priorat ($208.00) “… 2013 Clos Erasmus, which follows the line towards more freshness, less oak and extraction started with 2012. It’s mostly Garnacha, with some 25% Syrah, fermented with indigenous yeasts and aged mostly in French oak barriques (40% new), plus a couple of amphorae where it matured until bottling at the end of May 2015. I had followed the 2013 since before it was bottled, and every time I tasted it I liked it better and better, and I formed the idea that it was the purest, most elegant Erasmus ever produced. I was really eager to taste the bottled version of it, which I hadn’t encountered until this day. And I can tell you, it didn’t disappoint me at all. In fact, it was probably better than what I tasted before bottling. It’s the essence of Garnacha put through a sieve of slate, with some subtle spices, with an ethereal quality I had never before seen in this wine. The palate is silky, with a seamless texture. It combines the finest fabric with the essence of the dusty roads from Priorat, elegant and rustic at the same time, like the proverbial British farmer dressed in the best corduroy trousers and tweed jacket, beautifully textured. The wet slate and the Mediterranean herbs take over the aromatic front with time in the glass, and it kept changing over the course of two hours that I followed the wine in the glass, with more and more nuances and filigree every time I went back for it. It’s approachable now but I foresee a long and positive evolution in the bottle for 15+ years. The opened bottled kept fresh for a couple of days. I wish I could time travel to the future and taste it then… I think this really merits a perfect score. There are 3,000 bottles produced.” 100 points Wine Advocate
2012 Clos Mogador Priorat ($99.00) “The 2012 Clos Mogador is nothing short of spectacular. The nose of this 2012 is still little reticent, slowly showing a great Mediterranean-Atlantic balance with notes of herbs, wet slate and graphite. The super-elegant palate offers great acidity and freshness with incredibly layered and delineated flavors that have an electric, mineral sensation with tension and really fine tannins. There are no traces of oak and no edges… rugged silk? This is a Mogador for decades. If this is always a bargain for the quality it delivers, it is even more so in 2012!” 98 points Wine Advocate
1995 R. Lopez Heredia Viña Tondonia Gran Reserva Rioja ($105.00) “1995 was an excellent and early harvest, the grapes achieved full ripeness and were harvested under the sun during two weeks starting October 9. The wine, which exceptionally achieved 13% alcohol, is the usual blend, 70% Tempranillo, 20% Garnacho, 5% Graciano and 5% Mazuelo (Cariñena). Like all their wines, it fermented with indigenous yeasts in old oak vats and as a Gran Reserva it matured in old American oak barrels for ten years! Yes, it was bottled in November 2006 and launched in 2015, a full 20 years after the harvest. This light-colored, ethereal 1995 is the essence of Viña Tondonia. It has developed aromas and complexity gained with the time in bottle, of incense, leather, cured meat, cherries in liqueur, cold bonfire and spices. The palate is super-tasty, with fully-resolved tannins and very good acidity. The texture is super-fine, sophisticated and ethereal with gob-smacking balance. Intense, powerful and elegant, too. Hard to believe, but this red feels too young and while approachable, I’d wait a couple of years or more because it will be much better. The profile follows the style of the great classics of the 1950s and 60s. Bottles like this are the ones that created the López de Heredia myth.” 97 points Wine Advocate
2009 Bodegas Muga Prado Enea Gran Reserva Rioja ($70.00) “the phenomenal 2009 Prado Enea. It was produced with grapes from cooler vineyards that enjoyed 20 extra days of slow ripening compared with warmer zones, which provided them with perfect ripeness and deep flavors. This blend of 70% Tempranillo, 20% Garnacha and the remaining 10% between Mazuelo and Graciano had an extended élevage, in this case no less than three years (alternating newer and older barrels). The wine feels even younger on the palate, and it still needs to develop some further complexity and the silky texture for which this wine is famous. There is good balance here and all the elements are in place for a nice development in bottle. In fact, it feels like one of the great recent vintages of Prado Enea. At this quality level, the price seems like a real bargain. 90,000 bottles produced in 2009. Drink 2017-2029.” 96 points Wine Advocate
2015 was a fantastic vintage in France’s Rhone Valley. This week, three stupendous 2015 Rhone wines arrived:
2015 Domaine du Vieux Telegraphe “La Crau” Chateauneuf-du-Pape ($85.00) “This has a lovely, perfumy mix of savory, mint, tobacco, blood orange, cherry and bergamot notes all mixed together, carried by silky but ample structure before ending with a long, mineral- and shiso leaf-infused finish. Finely beaded acidity lets everything hang wonderfully. This should expand and cruise in the cellar. Best from 2020 through 2035.” 95 points Wine Spectator
2015 Domaine de la Janasse Vielles Vignes Chateauneuf du Pape ($95.00) “The 2015 Chateauneuf du Pape Cuvee Vieilles Vignes is a tour de force. Raspberry and apricot-scented fruit, rich chocolate notes and an incredible whirlwind of spice are delivered in this full-bodied wine that shows no heat, just waves of flavor. It should drink well for 20 years or more.” 98 points Wine Advocate
You need not pay a lot for a fantastic wine! 2015 Bastide Miraflors, Côtes de Roussillon ($13.99) just arrived, and it received a 94 point score from the Wine Advocate. “This wine is almost too good to be true. A blend of 70% Syrah and 30% Grenache that was brought up in concrete tanks (Grenache) and demi-muids (Syrah), the 2015 Bastide Miraflors Vieilles Vignes reminded me of a mini Syrah from California’s Manfred Krankl (yes I just compared a $14 Syrah to Sine Qua Non). It’s a ripe, sexy, heady beauty that exhibits a deep, purple color as well as killer notes of smoked meats, chocolate, blackberry and black raspberries. Deep, unctuous, open knit and layered, it continues to change in the glass, has a seamless and silky profile, and not a hard edge to be found. It’s a sensational value that needs to be tasted to be believed. Drink it anytime over the coming 2-4 years.” 94 points Wine Advocate