Raves about Baltimore Offline Wines and Food

[brappy]

Thanks Wonders.... Great notes!

A couple of comments:

On the riesling, I believe the minerality overpowered the fruit enouph to be considered a flaw. The fruit that was tasted was beautiful; just wanted more of it. Overall, a good wine for a spotty vintage.

The Casa Carneros was the '98. After getting some air, the fruit became a bit more concentrated which balanced this wine out a bit better. I believe we both agreed the wine seems to be on the back end of it's peak. I'd like to find some of this from a super-ripe vintage, like '01 or '02, and see what Ms Moravec has done.

On the El Nido, I should have decanted this the day before. As it was I decanted this just 1 1/2 hours before we tasted. The wine really began to sing around midnight. The acid came through better and balanced the wine out. The wine didn't show as well as I wanted and that's from my lack of prepping it. I'm also wondering if the wine is going through a dumbed-down time. I guess only time will tell. I've a few more and I'll hold off on the next one until at least '09.

On the Eric Ross Zin, this was the WOTN for me. The wine showed great concentrated fruit. For a seven year old zin, I had expected the fruit to have fallen off. And although it probably has somewhat, it's in perfect balance now. This wine is in its window and I don't see the window closing any time soon. After tasting this, I had a hard time moving on to anything else.

On the desert wines, both wines were a pleasure. We opened the Wagner first and I'm glad we did. Had we not, I might have been disappointed with it. The fruit was beautiful; just full of that white peach and yes I got a touch of lemon peel. Although nice, it lacked in complexity. In short, the wine was a very good single-dimensional wine. The Darting Eiswein, on the other hand, was anything but single-dimensional. The honeysuckle along with a touch of orange zest came at me in waves. It left me unable to do anything else except contemplate what I had just tasted. The complexity of this wine is a puzzle. The only thing I could do was have another taste. [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/biggrin.gif[/img] A truly outstanding effort.

None of the wine was wasted. We took them to another restaurant and tasted again with the staff there.

On the restaurant, I haven't found a bargain like this anywhere for an extremely long time, if ever. (there was also some grilled marinated chicken.) We couldn't even come close to finishing the food. And believe me I tried. The range of flavors complimented our wide range of wines in a way I wouldn't have thought possible. The service was timed perfectly, was unobtrusive, and was very friendly; she just seemed to have a smile on her face every time she came by. Hattie and I have now found our go-to place. We will be regulars.

And like I said in the other thread, can't wait to do this again.

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