Ok so my attempt to write three notes a day has been an epic fail so far in 2018, but there is still hope. If I can combo my first week in Hong Kong with my next in March and somehow get current with the massively insane Grande Fete de Bourgogne, I might actually be able to catch up and start flying, so to speak.

There was an unimpressive 2009 Pape Clement Blanc next. I have had excellent bottles of other vintages of this wine in the past, but I was very under-impressed with the 2009. It was pungent and sweaty in the nose, with some grapefruit and other yellow fruits, but I found its palate very one dimensional and unexciting. (87)

The 1996 Haut Brion Blanc was ‘the best white’ per the Ringmaster, and he was right. It had a fantastic nose of glue city, with intense, rich and twisted flavors that were dry with apricot and lanolin hints. Its structure and density were ‘wow’ and ‘wow.’ HBB is always a bit of an S&M wine, and sometimes it’s good to be a masochist when on the drinking end. (96).

The 1989 DRC La Tache that followed had more vim and vigor, perhaps more discoverable as my palate recovered. There were more rubber, leather and citrus aromas and flavors. Its palate was zippy with great citrus smack to its finish. (95+).

The 1988 DRC La Tache was also vimful, on the spicier side but definitely not with the fruit of the 2001. This was more on the whips and chains side of the fence, characteristic of the vintage. Baby definitely had back, similarly zippy and zoomy to the 1989, although more so. It had excellent leather and citrus flavors. (96+).

We finished with a 1962 Quinto do Noval Nacional. I always find it tough to gather enough energy for tasting notes of dessert wines, and this was no exception. It was smoother than I expected but, of course, great. (96).

Europe, on the other hand, is fucking cold in February. I am now in the middle of six days and five cities in Europe (hello from Oslo), and my first stop was one of my favorite tasting companions in the world, the Keymaster.

It was a quiet night by usual standards, but a welcome one, nonetheless. In fact, the theme would be ‘one’, which I found quite appropriate, since I like being number one, in case you haven’t heard ; )

Everything was served blind, and we were joined by the French Paradox, always a welcome guest at the dinner table. The first wine was Champagne, and a mature one with a light, dusty petillance. There were dry flavors of orange and rust with a dollop of honey at its core. It was smooth and tasty with cream soda flavors and inching towards outstanding with each sip. The Paradox noted, ‘pamplemousse’ on its finish, aka grapefruit. I noted hay flavors, and the Keymaster ‘caramel apple.’ It was an ultimately outstanding and original bottle of 1971 Lanson Red Label Champagne. (95).

The second wine had me guessing white Burgundy or Rhone at first, but ultimately it was white Bordeaux! The three hours of decanting definitely threw me off the scent at first, but once I knew, it was, of course, more obvious! Glue permeated its nose, and this was a mature and tasty white with amber flavors and that classic taste of Graves. Its finish was long like a red. ‘Well balanced and mature’ and ‘good minerals’ came from the crowd. I was stunned to find out this was a 1981 Haut Brion Blanc, and even more stunned when I learned it was open for three hours. Impressive for the off vintage and the air time. (93)!

The third wine had a superb and seductive nose, pure fruit and pure cherry, or ‘griottes’ as the Paradox noted. Olives and spice played their way into the game, and this was a fresh and lovely red. Its sweet fruit and game were delicious at first, but the wine waned a bit in the glass. It got a little sweet, and some bath soap emerged, but that was a heck of a first glass of 1991 Claude Dugat Gevrey Chambertin 1er Cru. (92).

I bought something off the list to round out our evening and put my friends to the test. The Keymaster noted a ‘bloody taste,’ and there was much more power and breed here in this delightfully (relatively) open 2011 Rousseau Chambertin. Even after tasting 87 vintages of Rousseau wines a couple weeks ago (yes, trying to get to that one), I am always ready for more! There was a lot of Asian spice here, and the Keymaster ntoed, ‘dim sum.’ Black fruits and meat off the bone sizzled in my mouth in this open, rich and approachable Chambertin that still had a lot of life left in it, of course (95).

Ok, twelve more notes on the books, I think I can, I think I can…

Upon 2018’s arrival, I had a few resolutions I set for myself, but only one that relates to what you are reading right now: to keep current with my wine tasting notes. I thought about it, and came up with a simple solution: to write up three notes a day. Seems easy enough, right? Ten to fifteen minutes a day, and I could have myself 1000 published wine notes a year. The consumed bottles are there, trust me. Well, January has almost come and gone, and I still need to resolve my resolution. Work and family have not left much time on the table. So here is my attempt to get current with January, and start my resolution in February. I know I will be in a big hole very quickly, as our Grande Fete de Bourgogne from February 3-9 will see an enormous amount of great Red Burgundies get consumed.

My first great wine weekend of 2018 was in Los Angeles, where the most magical weekend occurred thanks to The Rev. This was no ordinary weekend, as The Rev finally got married after 57 years of that single life. Congrats again brother! And The Rev doesn’t have ordinary friends either, including a band of merry wine collectors that flocked together all weekend amongst his starry friends.

The next night was the first official great wine dinner of the year, and it was a Bad Boy production. He brought the Attorney General with him, as he tends to do in order to protect himself lol. Other than that, it was all young ladies, my wife included : )

We started with the 1996 Dom Perignon, which was what I would call good not great. It opened up in the glass, but it was a bit whitewall finish without much fruit development, and it had that typical young DP flavor profile of ice ice baby. Honestly, I can live without DPs younger than 1990 (92).

The 1996 Roumier Bonnes Mares was rich, dense and ‘extracted’ per the AG. This was a fantastic show for both Roumier and 1996, another vintage really coming into its own. There were loads of dark, black fruits along with a long, zippy finish. I was impressed how decadent this Roumier was, as they often take much more time to come around, and its heavy personality didn’t feel heavy handed. This was a great wine, flirting with another category (96+).

Next up was a 2001 Giacosa Barbaresco Rabaja Riserva, which was definitely in Beast Mode. This is the forgotten, great Barbaresco made by Giacosa. It is very rarely seen. This was an incredibly thick and long wine, tight for sure, but ready to play. It was dry like the Sahara in a good way, and intense like an Arabian prince. I was inspired by this wine, and so was the Bad Boy, who cleaned out the rest of my stock (97).

The last wine of the night was an excellent 1994 Soldera Brunello di Montalcino. It might have been a Riserva, I didn’t notice. In my mind, there is only one Soldera, and it is one of the truly great wines of the world. This was served a bit cold, but it was still a fastball of a Brunello that outpunched the weight class of its vintage. It was rich without being spectacular, but a delicious wine that also improved in the glass (93).

We all went on our merry way, only to reconvene for the big day. It was a magical wedding, love was everywhere, especially on our table with over a dozen incredible wines. It was a real party, so I didn’t take thorough notes, but I got to have a lot of interesting discussions with people with lots of Grammys. Here were the wines:

Ok so I made it through my first wine weekend of 2018. Let’s see if I can keep it up. That means another article next week before our Grande Fete de Bourgogne, as I was a busy boy in Hong Kong this week. Here’s to a resolution I will finally keep!

Happy New Year y’all. May 2018 be your best vintage yet! 2017 was a great year for Acker, and a lot of hard work. There was also a lot of great wine. Here are my Top Ten wines of 2017 – at least the ones I can remember, or found the notes for. There’s probably a ten percent margin of error lol. The envelopes please…

I could end this article here, but it just doesn’t feel right. There were so many other exceptional wines had this year, but where to draw the line? Well, 97 points and up, of course. That is equivalent to the ‘best wines of my life’ category. This is probably a good time to give a ‘this is how I rate’ review. 95-96 is outstanding, 93-94 is excellent and 90-92 is very good. For me, all fine wines should fall into one of these four categories; first, is it excellent? Is it outstanding? Etc. If a wine is very good bordering on excellent, then it is 92 points as opposed to 91 or 90. That’s about as quick a summary as I can make. And now for the rest of the ‘Wines of the Year 2017.’

Crap, in my final scrum amongst all my notes to get all those 97 point and up wines, I found one more 99 point wine I totally forgot, the 1992 Ramonet Montrachet. Let’s call it #4a to break up that run of La Taches lol. ‘The Ramonet was toasty, milky and caramel-y, this was a bang zoom kind of wine and one of the greatest white wines ever made. Flavors of mint, corn, syrup, butter and kinky white chocolate had me talking GOAT. Maaaaaaaaa.’ (99)

Ok, just to be completely frank, there were two more wines I found at 98+ so technically they should have been in my Top Thirteen, aka the Baker’s Dozen, fuck fuck fuck…they were the 1959 Lafite and Mouton, but I am just in too deep trying to finish this damn thing and I need to get the January HK catalog on the press, so deal with it : )

Here are the rest, oldest to youngest, because older is always better, at least for wine : )

So 84 wines tasted in 2017 that I would consider amongst the greatest wines in my life, that’s about three bottles every two weeks to have a ‘wine of your life.’ I think that is a good goal for all in 2018. Of course, if I didn’t miss that 1947 weekend in South America due to last second drama, I would have made it to 100, I know it!!! Now I am mad about that weekend, let’s just say that when push comes to shove, family comes first…grrrrrrrr…and thanks to The Ambassador for the invite…

Anyway, here’s to a delicious 2018 to all, drink up and be merry!

While Greater China and the USA are the two lions sharing most of the free market’s fine and rare wine in the world today, there is a third lion, perhaps more of a cub when it comes to its wine, but one that already knows how to roar. I try to go to Brazil at least twice a year, as the passion, energy and culture of the Brazilian people is a true joy to share. Of course, it is more joyous when there are bottles of wine on the table, and the most joyous when they are the world’s finest and rarest.

One of my first and dearest friends in Brazil is known as The Ringmaster. The name is self-explanatory, and The Ringmaster once again planted a seed for a tremendous day to grow into one of the most memorable meals I have had all year. The Maestro was our host, a man who loves wine as much as any that I have ever met, and his spectacular apartment in Sao Paulo was the setting for a lunch that went well into the evening.

The second Krug in this flight I guessed correctly, with it being a 1990 Krug Clos du Mesnil. There was immediately more oak noticeable in the nose. It had the most power of the flight, but it was a bit dirty and clumsy by comparison to the first Champagne. It was rich and round with soda and cracker qualities, and the vanilla came in as the oak morphed a bit in the glass (95+).

The 1988 Krug Clos du Mesnil was delicious; it was the most ready to go and approachable, which is why I thought it was the 1990 regular. It was quite tasty with citrus and toffee twists, along with pleasant spices and a nice mahogany or interior wood quality. However, it was lighter than the first two! The ’88 has long been one of my favorite Krug vintages, so I was surprised with its more demure personality. It got more limey in the glass (95).

At first, I preferred the 1999 Ramonet Montrachet, whose mintier nose was a giveaway for Ramonet. It felt a lot more wound up and intense than the DRC in the beginning. There was great spice and super spine here, a bit in the S&M direction, as the wine whipped my palate into submission (97).

The 1999 Lafon Montrachet was unfortunately oxidized (DQ), so The Maestro quickly disappeared to his cellar for a mystery white to replace it. He noted ‘sesame’ in the nose, while The Ringmaster found ‘peach marmalade.’ It was leaner than the 1999 and reminded me of the 2000 vintage a bit, but in a much younger way. My guesses were all over the place, and I was thinking older than it really was. The Traveling Man guessed 2009, and he was a lot closer to the actual vintage of this 2012 DRC Montrachet. It was still baby juice compared to the 1999s; I recommend waiting at least ten years before cracking those DRC Montys (94+).

The 1988 Leroy Richebourg was much richer with a cherry cough syrup thing happening, not in a negative way. It was rich and almost syrupy, oily and long with loads of black fruits on its finish. At first, I found the two Richebourgs qualitatively equal despite being stylistically different (both around 95 points), but after some time in the glass, I agreed with Dr. Feelgood that the DRC was the better wine (94).

Interestingly, the second C du P was a bit yeasty and weird at first. There was this dirty pool water thing as the Rayas giggled its way into my heart. The 1990 Bonneau Chateauneuf du Pape Reserve des Celestins was clearly stronger and blacker; it flexed a lot more muscle and sprinkled a lot of pepper around the nose. Its dirty qualities transformed into oats and cereal, along with a lot of farm goodness. In the end, the Celestins was deeper, longer and more complex (96+).

The North was, as you might guess, a Chave La Chapelle throwdown. The 1978 Chave Hermitage had a sweet and perfumed nose with light pepper, gorgeous violet and whiffs of bacon, all in the right places. This was very classic, very rich and very round (96).

As good as the Chave was, the 1978 Jaboulet Hermitage La Chapelle was one of the wines of the day so far. There was so much animal here with loads of menthol. The was a gamey and meaty wine that was absolutely delicious and oh so good. ‘GREAT’ summed it up (98).

The 1959 Mouton Rothschild was stronger and longer, clearly the better bottle. Its cassis, chocolate and mint were divinely proportioned and present. This was a red wine that was actually a cheese killer ”“ usually cheese kills red wines but not this time. This was a classic claret, with that unique Mouton style, in a perfect place (98).

A ‘serious’ blind wine was served next, and the Romanee Conti guesses came quickly. There was this autumnal oil to the nose, along with sweet brown sugar, menthol, gingerbread and more spice. This was a ‘crazy time’ wine. More sweet brown sugar and oats played together nicely on the palate, and this lip smacking red had a citrus spank to its finish that hurt so good. It wasn’t from the 1990s, not 1980s, had to be 1978 RC, I mused. It was a stunningly good bottle of 1988 DRC Romanee Conti. Wow. I was impressed, not only how good, but how much more ready it was than I thought an ’88 would be. I need to investigate a few more from this vintage in early 2018 (98+)!