2024 is at an end! Sadly, a year of reduced drinking (due to me having a back infection and taking antibiotics for most of it). Moreover, I end the year in terrible, terrible pain as the Spinal Cord Stimulator, that gave me six months of incredible relief, was removed at the start of October. If my long-term reader recalls, it was that device that was the source of my back infection.
The year ahead brings the implant of a new SCS on 13th January. Hopefully, this one will not get infected during its insertion. I hope the lack of a raging infection and the return of my ability to sit both at the dining table to drink and in front of my machine learning workstation to write will bring more content to my ageing organ.
Ageing organ? Yes, 2025 also marks Elitistreview’s twentieth anniversary! Such an event is cause for celebration is ever there was one. I have not thought of how this momentous milestone might be marked, but I am sure something will happen. I have a few 2005 wines that could be popped…
Of course, the arrival of a New Year is great for wine lovers. Everything in one’s cellar suddenly becomes one year closer to being ready to drink! Pop that bottle of young fizz just after midnight so it has had an extra year and will be more approachable;)
Before the New Year arrives, it is time for me to select five wines that stand out in my year’s drinking as being particularly fine or served at a distinctly happy event. In no particular order they are:
Champagne Noces de Craie 2018, Marc Hebrart – I have had this coruscatingly brilliant Champagne twice this winter, once with my excellent friends Alex and Guy at the big whites tasting on my birthday, once a few short days ago with super chap Richard. This wine almost screams its turangawaewae at you, it smells of its home, chalky vineyards, it tastes of them, you can feel them in this wine! Such an expression of place is laudable, but there is more. It has a wonderful fruit character – raspberries and wild strawberries and the depth of their expression is astounding. Ah yes, the depth. This is undoubtedly a big, muscular fizz, huge depth, huge power. However, despite its size it remains an energetic, refreshing drink, in part due to the strong chalk character, in part due the the fabulous, fresh acidity. This is a complex, beguiling, astounding fizz, up for drinking too. This is still available from Lea and Sandeman.
Ermitage Blanc 2016 or 2018, Philippe et Vincent Jaboulet – Marsanne can be extremely good, but the other white grape in the Northern Rhône, Roussanne, is just a bit lovelier. Consequently, it has long been a dream of mine to have a Hermitage Blanc made from pure Roussanne. This year I found that two Jaboulet brothers make one, and I got to try two vintages of it! The 2016 was a little bit tired, but it was still an excellent wine of fruit, scale and real vineyard typicality. The 2018 was much fresher and spoke so much of its origins you would never guess it was a novelty style of Hermitage. It just seemed like a big, fruity, broad Hermitage Blanc. They were both terribly happy events in the company of wonderful friends. You can get the 2019 of this wine from The Sampler.
Syrah Schist 2010, Mullineux – All my initial experiences with Mullineux single-terroir Syrahs suggested that they were hard, harsh, joyless wines with their only redeeming feature being you could stop drinking them. Then my excellent friend Leon opened this 2010 Schist Syrah… The scales fell from my eyes! I saw how those tannic, acidic beasts could age into something that when à point, as this wine was, could be not only lovely, but fabulously beautiful and utterly desirable. I had seen the same qualities in Rall Ava Syrah, a wine obviously destined to be great in time, I do not know what was stopping me from seeing it in the Mullineux. Now it was revealed that when mature they were structured wines, but not hard. This had extremely attractive fruit and a gorgeously ravishing mineral/earth texture to it. It displayed dazzling complexity and both Leon and I commented we could see flashes of Chave Hermitage in the wine. What a delight! I have bought some recent vintages and a bottle of 2012 that I will share with Leon in two years’ time. Lay and Wheeler have some recent and a few slightly older vintages (that would be the sensible purchases for the impatient).
Monte Bello 2013, Ridge – Another kind donation from lovely Leon toward increasing The Editor’s and my mirth metric. My, did it pressurise the pleasure pump. I think my deeply analytical note in the review of the restaurant we were dining at whilst imbibing this wonder says it all.
Riesling Beerenauslese Niederberg Helden 2013, Schloss Lieser – This delight from the Howard Ripley summer sale and the presence of the delicious Richard made a December evening unforgettable. The Beerenauslese was so sweet it could only ferment to 5.5% before the yeast expired from excess. But the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom and as I poured measure after measure into our three glasses I could feel us being overwhelmed by wisdom – unless it was diabetes that nearly knocked us out. Fruity, botrytic, clean, long, complex… errr… sweet – it had it all! What better way to kick-start our holiday time into a frenzy of fun?
I have had fun!
From The Editor and me, Happy New Year!
