One interesting wine

1994 Domaine aux Moines Savennieres Roche aux Moines (Loire Valley, France)

I won't say that I don't enjoy it, but I will say that I often find myself talking about the shadows cast between bottles, rather than the bottles themselves. Every so often, though, I come across a wine that is a bit different and that deserves some notice of its own. I don't mean the monumental bottle with the concomitant huge buildup, but rather the sort of wine that has snuck up and stolen the scene. Or proved a point. Or paired exceedingly well. An interesting wine. The kind of wine that alters taste by fostering it, rather than by holding taste for ransom.

My pal Kevin shared the 1994 Domaine aux Moines Savennieres with me. The bottle had been open for some time previous to my attending to it, but a pungency persisted in the aromas. A lift. Fresh sardines and finely crushed egg shell. This was a Chenin Blanc showing the sort of feathers you see at the bottom of a dovecot: they might have been white once, but now they were all mostly gray from having been somewhat trampled into the sodden soil. With more time - a few hours - I found the yellow yolks of those eggs, as golden tones broke across the length of the flavors. I beheld a structure like a latticework birdcage of amber honey, and inside it a songbird who sang out in sotto voce lavender tones. A wine like a heavy woolen blanket flung out into the air on a breezy day, curling and rolling with the expanse.