£10, Marks & Spencer Clos Rocailleux Braucol Rosé 2013 This is a bit special: from an estate in Gaillac in the Tarn region, run by a British couple since 2012, a rosé made with the local Braucol grape: distinctive, with really punchy, assertive berry flavours and a fine, elegant acidity.
With its elegant, dancing acidity, it's a dry riesling to match many from Alsace or Germany's Pfalz region.
Sun, too, called it elegant, with good acidity.
The other great years were 1990, a very rich, outstanding vintage, and 1985, which has it all: It's wonderfully elegant, has great acidity and real soil character.
The producers responsible for the wines that most impressed me at this event -- truly elegant Chardonnays with vibrant acidity and complex, minerally Pinot Noirs -- were Ceritas, Chanin, Cobb, Evening Land, Hirsch, Lioco, Miura, Mount Eden, Peay, Sandhi, Soliste, Tyler and Wind Gap.
Henschke Julius Eden Valley 2002 $25 *** [Rating: Three Stars] Intense yet elegant, with lively minerality, good acidity and peppery, spicy flavors.
Elegant and lively, with the acidity and fine- to medium-grained tannins to evolve for another 5 - 10 years, easily.
Some are good, even in California, where the best examples either follow the Bordeaux model, with an elegant balance of fruit, tannin and acidity, or are made in the more typical California style, full of sweet fruit.
That influence can be felt in the almost edgy, cooling acidity that underpins this judiciously oaked, weighty but elegant Chilean white.
NV Domaine Michel Sarrazin Blanc de Noirs Crémant de Bourgogne Brut ($23.99): 90% Pinot Noir, 10% Aligoté; fresh notes of red berries, under-ripe stone fruit, and trailing toast; elegant with delicate mousse that coats the mouth in refreshing acidity; salinity on palate begs for food; dazzling.
The soup would welcome a complex but somewhat modest red wine, a pinot noir with good acidity, for example, as easily as it would an elegant white like a gewürztraminer or a riesling with a mellow touch of fruit, or a rich sauvignon blanc.
