I had a long day, and Fu pissed me off, so I popped a 2016 Gonon St Joe

WINE TALK
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I had a long day, and Fu pissed me off . . .

A we ask on Passover, “Ma Nishtanah HaLaylah HaZeh?”

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FIFY

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[winner.gif] [winner.gif] That is exactly my area of expertise. But, I am much more fluent in coastal Georgia than I am to the accent the “rubes” use in Central Georgia. [oops.gif]

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Sorry, I only speak 'Merican, Georgian and a bit of Chicago - I know what a ruff is.

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I am still confused about getting back at Fu with a Rhone. Wouldn’t it have been better to open a bottle of Krug???

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Not to interrupt a wine thread with an actual wine comment, but it’s interesting how Alf’s bottle seemed to show more open than the one I had a couple of months about:

https://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2670435#p2670435

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Heat damage cause he lives in Florida

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[winner.gif]

I have a feeling from reading Alan’s notes - and he has a killer palate - that I may be more tolerant of a young wine than him, so long as it is not a modern wine. Gonon is not that.

I doubt that this is an issue at all, but these cases sitting in my office have been there for 6 months at about 70 degrees. Not ideal, but short-term.

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Horrors!!!

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Funny enough, my co-lead partner is from South GA. I call him redneck, but he’s one cool MOFO and an absolute genius with a photographic memory. A truly gifted lawyer and a good man, honored to be friends. His Georgia sayings crack me up. I’ve been quietly writing them down for over ten years, so when he retires - he’s about 5 years older than me - I’m gonna roast him at the going away party. They definitely speak differently there.

He drinks Cali bombs but Islay Malts like me, so some Venn Diagram in play.

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All great law firms have partners from South Georgia, but I always thought they had to love Burgundy.

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He’s off the island.

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It’s funny reading how well the wine drinks young, since I had a completely opposite experience two weeks ago.

A year ago I had a Rhône tasting including Gonon St. Jo 2015 that was double-decanted before the tasting at around 6 pm and finally poured into the glasses around 9-10 pm. An outstanding wine and the best wine of the evening.

In this recent tasting I arranged in early May I did exactly the above decanting procedure with St. Jo 2016, but this time the wine was very backward, reductive and closed a rather flatulent character. It took some serious swirling and leaving it sitting in the glass for hours and finally the wine started to open up somewhere around midnight. Very tightly-knit and showing lots of promise, but many people who were looking forward to taste this wine were quite disappointed - this time Gonon was nowhere near the best wine of of the tasting.

Since this was the first time tasting 2016 vintage for everybody involved, we just thought this was a rather backward vintage showing the reduction Syrah is normally prone to, but maybe that was just an off bottle, showing more reduction than a young Gonon should? Although both obviously built for the long haul, 2015 vintage was definitely from a wholly different level.

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If this had been Robert’s bottle, I might suspect one of the dogs.

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You didn’t just come off a 4 hour hellish phone call. Context is everything.

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After a 4 hour call with lawyers I would have gone straight to Islay.

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Otto may not be a real viking!

His palate seems much too refined.

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The bill would pay for my trip . . . .

[wow.gif]

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Incidentally, I never did go back to the bottle remainder last night. Came home way too late from my son’s tennis team match in a USTA event, ended up drinking some 18 Bunnahabhain from Islay. Decent, just ok. Has a bit of a harshness that one would not expect from an 18.

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Unfortunately you might be confusing Finland with Sweden here. During the time of the vikings the only thing Finland had to do with vikings was fighting them when they came-a-raidin’. Probably with exceptionally well-sharpened twigs, clubs made of dried fishes and mämmi (you might want to google this one, it’s an Easter delicacy here).

But you might be right in that my palate is exceptionally refined. After all, since time immemorial Finnish food has been known for its delicate flavors and very judicious use of spices: perhaps a pinch of salt for taste and a dash of black pepper if it’s a festive occasion. Anything beyond those two spices is either considered too exotic or just plain heresy. Many foreign people often compliment Finnish food with such adjectives as “bland”, “dull” or “flavorless” - and a Finnish cook might confirm “yes, isn’t it good?”

So, as is the case with all Finns, my taste buds have been well-protected from any strong flavors or spices for most of my life and that’s why I can taste with quite remarkable flavor precision and say with confidence that yes, this wine does taste like farts.