Yellow. Thick legs. Very high quality, creamy vanilla oak and notes of honeyed sweetness on the nose, but the wine is intensely powerful and dry on the palate. This Harslevelu drinks more like the Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay, the 1999 actually, than an Alsace Riesling or Gewürztraminer. Intense spicy peach, fig and vanilla custard with pineapple and lychee aspects. There is also an aldehyde, peach skin and pear skin streak that indicates over-ripe Harslevelu fruit which causes the wine to loose a little focus. Nothing as detrimental as the 2000 Imre Györgykovács, but detrimental enough. The mouthfeel is smooth and broad on the front with a slight glycerine feel and this continues the whole length of the palate. The fire and power of Somlo really shows through on the middle and back in the form of strong minerality and powerful but integrated acidity, which melds very well with the spicy peach. This creates a very, very powerful and long finish. This individual vineyard wine, of which 680 bottles were made, is of great class, power and complexity. However, although it should age well for over a decade, the over-ripeness will unfortunately never dissipate and this wine will never reach the exulted level that the maker intended and that was probably within the wine’s potential. Nonetheless, the wine was a true pleasure to sample. 18.1/20. $50.
This was opened at a dinner on 19th February 2005, written about by Attila. Click here.
Adair