Milky stuff. Opaque throughout the rather rich glowing amber. Lemon grass, pear, and slight tropical floral exude shyly from a fairly austere cidery nose. Accidentally chilled to hi-40’s, warming the glass to more respectable white-wine temp shows considerable more apricot and green banana.
Tasting it produces a stark reality to the closed-in bouquet. Bitter astringency remains at the fore-front, the whole package destined for a demo NOT reliant on lush buttery fruit, lavish oak or chubby concentration. Round and decadent in exuberance across the middle, it still enters green and raspy, a nuance continuing whole-body as walnut-skin and peach-pit wrestle fruit for dominance. Citrus is neither a ripe Meyer lemon sort or even grapefruit–citrus is actually not even in the picture–as the abrasive texture takes on delicacies quite beyond anything in the *citrus* realm. Chalky-grainy and chewy, this takes “white wine” well into another conversation, and while the grainy texture isn’t exactly *tannic*, there’s a body of astringency at one point complying with the fruit and on another challenging it.
A rather unique bottle of wine, one demanding thought and consideration and CLEARLY not absconding to the palate of the 99%. Full in some areas and stark in others, I will be looking forward to tasting it in a year. Will it settle down? Will it polish? Your guess is as good as mine.
2020 SABELLI-FRISCH Picpoul Shergill Vyd Mokelumne River AVA California 13.0
Stephen McConnell 