Author Archives: Christopher Pratt

Te Kairanga Casarina Reserve Chardonnay 2006

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I’m starting to wonder if I’m ever going to find a bottle of chardonnay that’s a color I want to see in front of me. Once again, this has got that buffed to a sheen glare I’d rather see in a Manhattan lobby than in a glass in front of me. Whatever, though, I should probably find something more serious to talk about than mere looks. Right?There’s a hell of a nose on this wine. It’s like a Supermarket Sweep contestant was so stressed that they filled the cart with Lemoneheads and Fleischmann’s Yeast, sort of: it’s kind of a hypnotic twisting in the breeze between fantastic cleaning products, 1950s style, and something a bit funkier – Thanksgiving Parker House rolls, perhaps, glistening with eggwhite fresh out of the oven. And yes, yes, there’s also subtle vanillin oak there as well, giving you pretty much everything you could hope for in a New World chardonnay.Nowhere near a California butter bomb in the mouth, the bright, sunny fruit is well preserved indeed, not taking a back seat to any kind of winemaker intervention. remaining squarely in the center here. I’m disappointed that the yeasty notes on the nose largely disappear once you taste it, but the texture is lovely indeed, slightly creamy, finishing on a every so slightly bitter note well hidden behind perky acidity. There’s also a subtly woody note on the midpalate which seems slightly off – it’s a little more overt than everything else deserves, I think – but all in all this is a lovely bottle of wine.That being said, I’m not sure what marks this as distinctly Kiwi. I find it slightly hard to distinguish between this, the Neil Ellis Elgin chardonnay from last week, and any number of New World wines. Thankfully, though, this is a fine example of the genre.Te Kairanga
Price: NZ $29
Closure: Stelvin

Campo Viejo Reserva 2004

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Finally, here’s the second part of my tasting notes for tonight. It took me a few minutes to decide what to do with the Campo Viejo Crianza 2006 – at first, I thought I could merely cork the bottle, sit it outside on the sidewalk, and – to paraphrase Mao – let a thousand unintended pregnancies bloom, but that would of course have been grossly irresponsible of me. Down the sink it went; yes, I did recycle.Now, on to this wine. My first thought on opening the bottle was simple “Oh, wait, this is a real wine.” I know, how haughty of me, but really: this didn’t smell of simple berries and fruit. This wine smells of, well, wine. There’s almost a hazelnut or roasted-coffee-biscotti note around the edge of it; it seems clear to me that this wine has seen a fair whack of oak. There’s also a lingering hint of some of the same vanilla berry notes from the regular version of the wine, but in a very tastefully restrained manner: it’s the difference between Versailles before and after Jeff Koons. What it really smells like, though, is proper Rioja: this reminds me of random bottles of Spanish wines happily drunk on holiday in Madrid with friends a few years back. What fruit there is is fastidiously framed by a hint of sourness, appetizing woody-coffee notes, and a sense of place. In short, whatever went missing from the crianza is here in the reserva.Taste-wise, there’s a brief, soft opening of gentle fruit that fairly rapidly fans out into an elegant, lacy interplay between reasonable, appetizing acidity, something like gentle earth, restrained berry fruits, soft vanillic effects, and then it all rides out quietly on somber, toasty oak. It’s the acidity that really ties the glass together, though; without it, this would be too soft, too easy. The overall effect is of eating delicious cake with a short espresso, I reckon; you get both the vanilla cherry pie and the upright tannins – but not too much, because then this wine wouldn’t really be Spanish.The most impressive thing here is to me the remarkable lightness of this wine. Compare to New World wines, this just doesn’t go as far down the tonal register, which makes it a refreshing change from the usual. This also means (I think) that this is another one to pair with sausages or grilled meats: it would work wonders. For me, it’s doing just fine with simple spaghetti bolognese, but it could have been so much more.Finally, I feel compelled to publicly wonder about something that utterly baffles me: this wine is selling for just $10 at The Wine Exchange in Orange, California. How can this be? If the cheap version of this is $9, why is this only a buck more and – more interestingly – why is it so much better?Disclaimer: I didn’t spend my own money on this bottle, but I also didn’t agree to anything.Campo Viejo
Price: $10
Closure: Cork

Campo Viejo Crianza 2006

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Much to my surprise, I found myself accepting free samples of wine from a certain publicly traded French drinks behemoth. Why? Simple: I figured what the heck; if the wine sucked, I’d have fun complaining in a really boring, Adbusters-esque way about corporate wine blah blah blah. But if it was good… then what? In a world filled with small, struggling producers that produce original, interesting wines in this price range, do we really need one more review saying anything good about wines that are presumably produced in unspeakable quantities and then drunk in cruise ships and indifferent hotel restaurants the world over?The short answer is yes. Not everyone has the access to a wide range of indie wine shops that we have here in California; not everyone lives in a state that allows direct shipping. In many places in North America, you either get it from the liquor board shop or you don’t get it at all. And in places that really don’t drink “fine wine” (leaving aside the discussion of what exactly that is for now), then all you’re going to get is “industrial wine” – so why shouldn’t you be aware of the good stuff?First off: a disclaimer. Full Pour’s review policy is simple: you can send us free wine, but we don’t promise we’ll review it. And if we do review it, we don’t promise we’ll publish the review. And if we do publish our review, we don’t promise it’s going to be a good one.OK, that’s out of the way. How is this $9 wine courtesy of Behemoth French Industrial Producer?The nose offers up super friendly, inviting, warm red berry aromas. It smells better than any strawberry rhubarb pie I’ve ever baked, at any rate. There’s also a kind of woodsy perfume there as well, just a hint of something like candied oak. Not too bad.Sadly, however, once you get some of this in your mouth, it all falls apart. Dang it, I was hoping to like this wine so that I could say yes, sometimes the big guys get it right… just not this time. Everything here seems loose, unstructured, out of focus: it’s a bit flabby, perhaps even just a tiny bit sweet, with an unpleasant raw acidity sneaking in to bust up the party the second it wobbles to a start. The overall effect is frankly unpleasant: it tastes cheap, unfinished. The one good thing I will say, though, is that the tannic structure of the wine is just fine, keeping some kind of firm hold on the whole endeavor.So what to do with this wine? The tannins suggest it needs meat; the rest of it suggests it needs to be obscured by something else; I’m thinking heavy barbecue smoke would do the job just fine. If you’re somewhere where you can get funky, indie bottles of unknown French reds, then go for it. If, however, your choice is between this and [yellow tail], then I’d say go with the Campo Viejo – it’s in the same price range but has a little bit more interest. Otherwise, though, can you remember the last time you drank a Coors? No? Well, it might be time to start over again…Campo Viejo
Price: $9
Closure: Cork

Domaine du Poujol Proteus 2007

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One long sniff and suddenly it’s 1979. I’m at a Thom McAn store, stuck waiting for a salesman to fetch out a series of increasingly dire shoes from the stockroom that I’m told will look great at church.This is a fairly complex nose; it’s not just throwback ’70s shoe leather, but also something slightly sour and candied, something pruny and animal, something very much like red berries and tar paper. On the whole, the effect is something on the order of unspeakably naff English candies that no one’s seen since the introduction of the EU: very old fashioned, somewhat unsettling, and (one hopes) ultimately very delicious once you can wrap your head around it.Somewhat shakily thin and nervous in the mouth, the impression I get here is that of an unusually ripe year that’s produced a slightly top-heavy version of what I imagine is normally a leaner, more mineral wine. There’s a huge amount of extract here, staining the sides of my glass with visibly gritty purple; there’s a slightly silty chunkiness in the mouth as well that is quite frankly awesome. Ultimately, what this wine reminds me of is a New World wine made with Robert Parker fans in mind: it’s quite good, no hidden surprises, rich and smooth and tasty.Thing is, though, if you give it a bit more time in the glass and pay more careful attention, there’s a very correct French wine hiding in here as well. There’s a wonderful slight sourness, an edge of minerality, a long finish that seems perfectly designed to be enjoyed with a sharp cheese. Tannins are in full effect, giving rise to the infamous ‘Who put socks on my teeth’ effect – and yet they’re very fine and graciously textured, something to be more feared than enjoyed.This seems to be a week for gateway wines: if you have a friend who professes to only like rich, full New World reds, try a bottle of this. Spend the evening sharing it with your friend. Serve them excellent cheese. Slowly (read: as you both become drunk) draw their attention to the acidity, the minerals, the tannins, the sourness. If I’m right, they’ll be a fan by the end of the evening, no doubt about it.Domaine de Poujol
Price: $10
Closure: Cork

Neil Ellis Elgin Chardonnay 2007

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Disturbingly bright in the glass, there’s something unappetizing about the color of this wine; this isn’t a color I usually see in a glass – only in a plastic cup. There’s also something too-clean, stripped about it; it has that harsh, fluorescent-lit indifference of well-filtered wines.Thankfully, the nose is spot on and entirely correct. It smells like gloriously manipulated New World chardonnay at its finest; there are funky autolyzed yeast characteristics along with just a whiff of just-struck matches. The only thing I don’t really smell is fruit: if there is any, it’s Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit along with a sort of coriander-lemongrass note that’s very much off hiding somewhere behind the lees.Wonderfully tart in the mouth, the fruit is at first ironically the only thing I notice here, a brief citrus burst of sun that quickly mutates into something slightly more tropical – pineapple, almost? – and then it’s all quickly restrained by a sly two-pronged attack of creamy vanilla oak and rich, lees-y texture. It all ends on an oddly muted, somewhat soft, almost mineral note with the crisp acidity hanging around slightly like a faded halo.Do I like this wine? To be honest, not particularly: it seems to me to be not worked enough to really inspire me – and yet it’s also not straightforward enough to be enjoyed as a simple, refreshing wine. Instead, it seems to me to be trying to have it both ways – bright, simple fruit framed by heavily manipulated winemakery (winemachinations?) – and it just doesn’t work, at least not for me. If you’re trying to wean someone off of unoaked chardonnay, though, there might be enough awakened intrigue here to lead them down the path to richer, more messed-with styles, however.Neil Ellis
Price: $18
Closure: Stelvin

Grosset Polish Hill Riesling 2002

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If memory serves correctly, this is the fourth bottle of this wine I’ve drunk. The first I enjoyed in Perth in September 2002; the second a few years ago in Seattle, the third in March of 2008, and now it’s time to revisit it again. Julian had a bottle last July; I wrote about it last March, and here we are again.Impossibly light, this wine reminds me of goose fat, smoking autumn leaves, rose petals that have lost their sweetness, tarragon, and hay. What fruit there is stone: peach and apricot, slightly dried. A sip of this is revelation: it’s rich, thick, full, wonderfully situated in the mouth. A swallow thins it all out, leaving gentle talc, an amazingly length finish of minerals and pale honeys, full acidity that leaves your mouth watering for more, more, more. The closest wine this comes to (for me, at any rate) is vintage Champagne; there’s almost the same order of toastiness here which I find surprising and entrancing. This wine has moved emphatically beyond the lime-soaked babe I remember from 2002 and into an entirely other world: this is dead serious and tastes like it should have cost the earth, which it thankfully didn’t.There’s no sweetness here to speak of but is there light? Yes, abundantly so.[Postscript: I didn’t read Julian’s note until after writing this one – and yes, Julian, I don’t detect any petrol here at all. I’m not sure what I was thinking when I wrote that earlier note last year – I suppose I was just being lazy in describing the wine, going not with what I actually perceived but instead cribbing from the default Aged Aussie Riesling note. My apologies.]Grosset
Price: $26
Closure: Cork

Leasingham Bin 61 Shiraz 2002

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For me, the worst thing about being a wino is probably the dilemma of choosing something to drink while you’re on your own. My partner should’ve been here for dinner tonight, but United Airlines declared his plane broken – something to do with the electrics – so he’s stuck in Chicago for the night leaving me with a simple question: what to drink with some leftover pork tenderloin, green beans, shallots, and mushrooms?This wine seems to do the trick just nicely: it’s not so expensive that I feel bad for not sharing – and more importantly, it worked wonders with the savory accidental broth left behind from the food. Thank you, Waitrose, for your lemon myrtle whatever; it really made the sauce.Even seven years past harvest the wine seems Barney purple, exuberant and fruity. The nose is classic Aussie shiraz, rich fruitcake, more cleavage than is proper, overripe plums stewed with cloves. There’s just a hint of something medicinal there, too – almost Russian aftershave that is never worn, simply drunk, with suggestions of woodland herbs used to make it all taste a little bit less like alcoholic poverty.I digress: this really is lovely and very much itself. I’m glad no one is asking me if this is like a Côte-Rôtie or a Hermitage or some other Old World wine: this is living proof that we’re doing just fine on our own in the New World, thank you. Yes, I suspect there’s a praiseworthy assist from a French fôret somewhere, but that’s certainly allowed, isn’t it?Wonderfully full and chunky in the mouth – I am somehow reminded of Wynona Judd here – the fruit still doesn’t seem perfectly integrated with the oak; of course, it doesn’t really matter. The impression to me is of visting a natural history museum: drinking this wine is like examining the rings of a California redwood or looking at geologic strata deposited over time. The line, such as it is, is parallel: fine, gentle, nervy acidity at the top; rich damson fruit with a hint of bottle age in the middle; at the bottom, fully resolved tannins grounded in dark loam. As wines go, this one is polychordal: it’s a neat trick and one the winemakers really should be immensely proud of. It’s a delight to drink, especially with the pork and beans.Leasingham
Price: $15
Closure: Cork

Te Mata Woodthorpe Vineyard Viognier 2007

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There’s something unpleasant about the way this wine smells, but what is it exactly? It doesn’t really smell like viognier, that’s for sure. To me, it smells more like powdered milk, inexpensive celebrity perfume that’d excite Humbert Humbert, and low-grade canned peaches. There’s also something like unventilated FEMA trailers duking it out with bitter phenolics in a disused corner of your high school chemistry lab. Oh man, this is fascinatingly bad. I mean, yeah, I don’t really want to taste it but if you’re gonna go off, you might as well do it in a really interesting way, right?Greasy and plastic in the mouth, it does nothing for a minute before surging up on a Bit-O-Honey wave of sugary fruit worthy of a trashy Serge Gainsborough song before making a quick right turn into an unpleasant, gritty, almost milky finish with flashes of peppery notes that’s just a touch hot as well, making sure that virtually everything that can go wrong with viognier has in fact gone wrong by the time you’ll finish the bottle. And that, by any objective observation, is no mean feat. Congratulations to Te Mata for a job well done! Te Mata
Price: NZ $22
Closure: Stelvin

Sébastien Roux Santenay "Sebastien" 2006

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Somewhat sweet and yet savory on the nose, this wine throw out associations with spearmint, roses, strawberries, and dried straw. There’s also a hint of typically Burgundian sourness there, framing it all to somewhat more serious effect; I’ve enjoyed just smelling this for a few minutes without necessarily feeling compelled to drink any. If anything, it smells unusually ripe, which is a bit of a surprise given the fairly pail, almost milky color of the wine.Somewhat broad in terms of structure and tannin, there’s a somewhat disappointing lack of strong flavor here, buttressed by firm acidity on the finish and a disconcerting aftertaste of stale wheat crackers. Sadly, I’m at a loss to describe what exactly this tastes like other than “like mediocre Burgundy” – it isn’t bad, exactly, and yet it isn’t doing anything at all for me in terms of pleasure. Weirdly, the only thing that comes to mind is something called Crazy Cow, which was a 1970s breakfast cereal that turned milk into strawberry milk upon application thereof. There’s an industrial strangeness here which, paradoxically, comes from a wine which presumably isn’t industrially made. Could it simply be that unusual ripeness in this vintage is overwhelming what interest there is behind relatively full sugars? I don’t know, but I’ll take a pass on this one.Sébastien Roux
Price: $20
Closure: Cork

Kuentz-Bas Pinot Blanc 2007

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Looking over at the glass, I initially mistook it for Martinelli sparkling cider, the fake Champagne every child gets at the Thanksgiving dinner table. It’s an unusual color for a white wine, brittle and clear, fairly pale and somewhat off-putting (at least to me). The nose is something like salt-water taffy, sweet with a hint of pineapple, possibly like hot buttered popcorn (oily, salty, with a hint of sugar). Pretty strange stuff, but of course pinot blanc isn’t something I drink often, so I don’t know if this is typical or not.I’m none too thrilled by this wine; it seems flat, flabby, not very refreshing. There isn’t much flavor here that I can discern; it’s mostly just generically wine-y, with the vaguest of off flavors that I can’t pin down entirely. The acidity leaves a bit of a burn in my throat, and all in all this wine leaves me cold. There’s more flavor and complexity in a bowl of Corn Pops than in this bottle; this isn’t one I’ll be finishing.Kuentz-Bas
Price: $14
Closure: Diam