by Tom Hill

A self-admitted wine geek, Tom lives in Northern New Mexico and works as a computational physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory doing numerical neutron transport & large scale code development. He has been tasting wines since 1971, participates locally with a couple of large tasting groups in his area, and is practically a fixture at most California wine festivals, such as the Hospice du Rhône, Rhône Rangers, and ZAP. Other interests: Tom is heavily into competitive sport fencing (foil & epee), biking, cooking, basketball, skiing, backpacking, mountain climbing.

Bernie Roth came to NewMexico this week for a mtg in Albq. so he drove up to SantaFe last night so we could have dinner together. Joining us were Howard&Rhoda Sherry; Larry&Laura  Archibald; and Murray Wolinsky, a Univ of Texas school mate of Bernie's. The wines:

1. Didier Daguenea PurSang PouillyFume '96: Light gold color; very fragrant/aromatic light herbal/earthy nose; soft rich very lush (almost Kendall-Jacksonized-like) light earthy Loire grapey flavor w/ good acidity underneath; rather atypical of PouillyFume in that it was so rich & lush; a Loire made in the Parker-dictated style rather than the traditional Loire style; an Arnold Swarzenegger Loire.
2. Charton et Trebuchet Batard-Montrachet '95: Med.gold color; lovely fragrant earthy/WB/ Chard light toasty oak nose; rich fairly lush light toasty oaked ripe Chard/earthy flavor w/ finish that goes on and on; a classic WhiteBurg w/ lots of richness & flavor.
3. Bonny Doon Le Cigar Volant (86.7% Grenache, 10.5% Mourvedre, Syrah,Cinsault) '86: Med.light color; fragrant strawberry/Grenache light earthy/leathery perfumed light pencilly/oak  fairly complex nose; soft light spicy/strawberry/Grenache light pencilly/oak/leathery finish w/ med.short finish & no tannins; not terribly exciting but a pleasant/attractive Grenache to drink; more than just a survivor but ready to drink up.
4. Bonny Doon Old Telegram Mourvedre '86: Badly corked; still good color but the mustiness overwhelmed everything.
5. Robert Groffier Bonnes-Mares '96: Med.dark color; beautiful aromatic/perfumed/violets/ Pinot some toasty/pencilly/oak classic RedBurg nose; fairly big/rich some tannic/earthy spicy/violets/Pinot toasty/pencilly/oak flavor w/ very long rather tannic finish;  classic RedBurg but a bit hard & tannic now & needs a few yrs of age yet.
6. Claude Dugat Gevrey-Chambertin '96: Dark color; some bretty/horsecollar funky/earthy bit Pinot/floral/fragrant nose; bit hard/tannic rather bretty/funky/horsecollar light floral/Pinot/grapey falvor; some brett but not objectionably so; pretty big & hard for a simple village Burg; needs 2-4 yrs yet.
7. Eugen Muller Forster Stift Riesling Eiswein (8.5%) '96: Med.gold color; fairly strong/ grapey some floral/Riesling bit earthy nose; very sweet lush/grapey soft very rich flavor; rather simple & grapey now but needs age to evolve; both Howard & Rhoda found a slight corkiness in this wine but I couldn't pick it up.
8. Topaz"DLX" (60% NapaVlly Semillon, 40% AlexanderVlly SB; 14.8%) '97: Dark gold color; loaded w/ toasted coconut/toasty/oaked/vanilla slight peachy/botrytis nose; very soft/ fat intense toasted coconut/toasty/vanilly/charred/oak light peachy/botrytis flavor; the toasted/oak pretty much obliterates everything in this wine; hard to tell what it will evolve into but it's a big risk taht it'll every be anything but oak juice; much  like some of the Ch.Nairac in the late '70's.

A good time was had by all. Bernie & I sparr with each other in CyberSpace quite a bit; but are always the picture of civility in RealSpace. So, in order for me to receive the appropriate degree of abuse; Laura, Larry, and Howard stepped into the breech, a task any one of them could do on their own.

TomHill

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