Hello everybody and welcome to Wine Library TV. I am your host, Gary Vaynerchuck and this, my friends, is the Thunder Show A.K.A. the internet’s most passionate wine program.
It is 2010—06, 07, 08, 09, 10. This will be the fifth year that we go into for Wine Library TV, absolutely insane to me. Happy, happy, happy, healthy, healthy, healthy New Year’s. I just want to thank all of you for being part of this show, being a part of this community, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. And I’m really excited because we’ve got bubbles on the table and if you know anything about me, you know the bubs are my absolute desert island wine.
We’ve got three serious Cuvees here and I'm excited to get right into it. I know it’s New Year’s Eve and I don’t want to waste a lot of your time because you’ve got plenty of things to do. Maybe you’re rocking and looking at this show on New Year’s Day or the second, so I hope you enjoy it. I’m excited about this.
Pierre Peters Champagne 2003 Blanc de Blanc, 100% chardonnay. This wine is 91 points Josh Reynolds, $65.00. Pierre Peters is founded in 1920. It’s an amazing house. There we go, a celebratory pour. I think I'm in wine mode, so I poured a little fast with the bubbles. You get a nice, good, foamy head when you go a little too quick. I got a little excited there, but Pierre Peters is a great, great producer. We have had some great success with some of their non-vintage stuff. This is the Blanc de Blanc, which means 100% chardonnay from the ‘03 vintage, solid vintage, and $65.00, 91 points Reynolds.
Let’s give it a sniffy-sniff. There’s sort of baked apple component coming through on the nose. It’s just really nice, like powdered sugar, almost like a funnel cake component coming through on the nose, which I like quite a bit.
Let’s give it a whirl. Quite smooth—wow! Quite smooth. Nice sour pear, apple flavors coming through, a little baked bread kind of thing going on. This is very clean, great residual, almost like sugar-type fruitiness and sweetness coming through in the back end. I like this quite a bit. Nice acidity, good, sharp, tight wine and really, really well-made. Wow! This is really good actually. This is really growing on me, a little bit of almost like cinnamon-apple flavors, apple pie on the back end.
I'm going to score this champagne 93 plus points. I think Reynolds is a little underscored here. I think this is a great start to a great, great show. I absolutely love it. Let’s give it a little rinse here. Great job by the Peters. I really like it. Let’s move on.
What we have here is the Lassalle—J Lassalle Cuvee Angeline Premier Cru 2000 vintage, 93 points Josh Reynolds, $65.00. This cuvee from one of the really great producers right there, J Lassalle, is something that I've not had a whole lot of experience with actually. So I’m excited about seeing what Angeline brings to the table. It’s got a great, great color.
Let’s give it a sniffy-sniff. Now, this has kind of like rubber bands and walnuts, kind of like a rubber band-walnut salad. I smell a little bit of that rubber coming through. But on the back end of that is this great golden kind of walnut flavor.
Let’s give it a whirl. Now, where the Pierre Peters was this light, crisp, clean bubbles, this is much sharper, intense, nuts in your mouth kind of thing—almonds, walnuts, that kind of thing going on. I actually get this great orange blossom meets hazelnut flavor on the palate, which I think is exceptional. This is also extremely good, really well-made. I think Reynolds is in the right ballpark. I’m probably going to go 92 plus points on this. This is sharper, leaner, meaner than the last one. The last one was a little more pleasant. They both fit a mold. Everybody has got their own palate, very distinct. There’s something about the silkiness of the last champagne that I liked a little bit more, but this is a more complex, more structured bottle of champagne. I feel like it has maybe even a longer longevity to it and it’s extremely, extremely good. Wow! You could tell when I’m in a good mood. These are ripping, ripping bottles of champagne.
And finally, Veuve Clicquot 1985 Vintage Rose Pinot Noir based wine, actually 44% Pinot Noir, 36% chard and 15% Pinot Meunier, $89.00, 94 points wine spectator. You’re going to see this has a little bit of a rose tint. Are you picking that up? A little bit more of a rosy, orangy tint.
Let’s give it a sniffy sniff. This has a totally different nose going on, a little bit more earthy on the nose. It’s almost like acacia, like acacia kind of flavor coming through, a little bit of rose petal, very different, a little stone, a little more minerality, less fruit, less yeastiness, less apples and pears.
Let’s give it a whirl. I had some pretty high hopes for this sparkling wine, but I got to be honest with you, not my favorite cup of tea. It’s okay. It’s solid. It has some decent structure. It tastes a little flabby. 85 is a great year, it shouldn’t be over the hill, but it doesn’t have the complexity and the fruit that I’m looking for in a bubble, and it got completely annihilated by the last two bottles of wine, especially the middle one. I actually think I’ve been a little tough in the middle. Just from a quality standpoint, the Cuvee Angeline is probably a better wine than the Pierre Peters, even though I rated the Pierre Peters a little higher. It just beat the undeliciousness, if that makes any sense.
There’s like a charm or charisma to the first wine that kind of—you could tell it’s like—it doesn’t have more depth, maybe not smarter, maybe not more polished, but there’s just some—like a southern bell that can win you over just by being nice. It’s something there. This Clicquot is actually very disappointing. The big finale on our New Year’s—you know, the wine that ends the year, that ends the decade is a clunker a little bit. I’m going to score it 87 points and give it a major pass. And the fact that this is $89.00 and these two are $65.00 and there’s no comparison may actually be a perfect way to end the decade for Wine Library TV where price has no impact. Everybody has their own palate. You at home could have these three and go at a completely different way. Sure, it’s Pinot Noir based. Some of these were chardonnay-based. That has no impact on the fact that the quality is just not there. If you taste these side by side, I just can’t imagine you going in a different direction.
Anyway, that’s how I see it. Great bubbles. Wishing you guys a healthy New Year. The question of the day is simple, what bubbles are you popping to welcoming 2010?
You, with a little bit of me, we’re changing the wine world whether they like it or not.
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