Top Picks from Vintages' December 6 Release
Robert Mondavi/Eduardo Chadwick Sena 1999 (Chile)
$79.95
I've followed this co-production wine for several years now and this is
the best vintage I've tasted. Dense purple in colour, the wine has a concentrated
cedar, blackcurrant nose; the structure is firm but the sweet blackcurrant
fruit bursts out of its corset of tannin. A very elegant, well-made wine
that will age for five years at least. *****
Podere Casale I Vin Santo del Chianti di Caratello 1997 (Tuscany)
$21.95 (500 mL)
Coppery old gold colour; intense, spicy dried fruit nose; mouth-filling,
rich, full-bodied, dried pear and honey, wonderfully balanced with great
length to a toasty finish. *****
Domaine Zind-Humbrecht Gewurztraminer 2001 (Alsace)
$39.95
Straw coloured; concentrated rose petal and lychee nose; fleshy and full-bodied,
spicy and honeyed, off-dry grapefruit and lychee with a peppery note;
great length. *****
Château La Vieille Cure 2000 (Fronsac, Bordeaux)
$39.95
Dense purple colour; smoky, flinty black fruit; quite forward with light
acidity, medium-bodied with soft tannins and a vanilla, mocha note. Drinkable
now and the next 5–6 years. *****
