During a recent wine dinner that we had the pleasure to attend, our friend Jim Friedman thought that it would be interesting to see how one of Jim and Rae Lee Lester’s fine Michigan Chardonnays (the only non-Euro wine in the bunch tasted on this occasion) matched up against the “real thing,†and I’m happy to report that it more than held its own. Not that we're surprised...
1998 Wyncroft Lake Michigan Shore Chardonnay Avonlea: Pale gold color, with soft hazel nut and some little sherried character on the nose; lots of crème Brule on the palate, accented with notes of butterscotch and toffee, along with a bit of minerality on the long, lingering finish. The secondary characteristics clearly carry this and the flavors are BIG, even more so with air; this wine is in a really nice place right now, and provides an excellent match for the grilled Hawaiian sea bass. Very impressive!
2000 Olivier Leflaive Meursault-Charmes, 13.5% alc.: Medium straw color, with a smoky, stony nose; in the mouth, it offers under-ripe apple and pear with some subtle stone that expands to a lot of minerality on the finish. Good cut and length, a creamy quality and a certain elegance to this, all on a medium full bodied frame. Quite nice, and as Master Sommelier Madeline Triffon remarked, it presents “a nice foil for the Wyncroft ;“ it certainly has a good future ahead of it, but on this night, it was (gasp!) relegated to 2nd fiddle by the wine from Michigan.
Imported by Frederick Wildman and Sons, Ltd., New York, NY.
- from No Shiraz at Shiraz (this time...)
Reporting from Day-twah,
geo t.
