Let me warn you ahead of time that there will be no original thoughts proffered in this post as I sit here at the copper bar of Gemma at the Bowery Hotel. (They have one of my wines on the list. Maybe more to come. One hand washes the other. Well I DID get an award for best shameless self-promotion.)
So I went to the Sopexa-sponsored Rive Droite tasting in Tribeca. I thought it would be nice to taste something French after total immersion in Italian wine for so long.
Cue the SFX: winds of time. Chirping birds to signal the dawn of youth.
In the early 70s I worked in wine retail. I learned my stuff from tasting all sorts of good wine, nearly all of it from France and much of that from Bordeaux. It wasn't expensive then by today's standards, but the wines knocked me out with their varied qualities and their family resemblance. Bordeauxs tasted like Bordeauxs whether Hegiras from Margaux or the Xanthippes of Plonkitaine (Cotes de Blaye etc). Terroir?? Yes if you mean climate, soil, grapes, and tradition.
Back to the present.
The wines in bottle were nice. Round, lots of fruit, easy to drink, etc.
Shockingly, so were the '08 en primeurs.
Yes, kids, you know where this is going. 'Tis an old old tale by now.
The wines could have been produced anywhere. Including many parts of Italy, tho' it pains me to say so.
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?
Fondues, baby, fondues.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
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