November 29, 2023 - Hot vintage, high alcohol 15%+. The underlying fruit is terrific, but the alcohol was so high that it masked important flavor nuances.
February 11, 2023 - A very, very good wine. But at 10 years, not much has happened. Balanced and pleasant for sure. Fairly long taste - and a good one certainly. But, at this price point I would expect to be in heaven! ;-)
October 1, 2021 - Vinminnen 5
December 31, 2016 - Initially glycerin. Begin to open up after a couple of hours. Very dense, powerful, fruity and complex. We continued to sip this all night, and it just became better and better. But way to early to open now.
April 24, 2016 - Beautiful nose of ripe strawberries, sandalwood, cèpes de Bordeaux, hint of iodine... Taste is high mineral with very long ripe strawberries finish. Perfectly balanced and feminine wine. I just love it!! The Wine of the Night!!
February 24, 2016 - Intense magenta and opaque. Open and highly aromatic with dark fruit, red fruit, violets, chinese five spice, basil, and balsamic. Same notes on the palate in addition to bitter chocolate, driven by intense acidity and supported by ample, fine-grained tannins. Very exotic.
I opened this bottle two days ago and was immediately struck by how similar it was to the 2012 Laurel. So, I popped a bottle to confirm. The two wines were almost equivalent. Absolutely equivalent in appearance. Perhaps the Grand Erasmus expressed some deeper, darker fruit on the nose and palate. The most noticeable difference was that the Grand Erasmus was quite a bit more acidic than the Laurel.
I like the Laurel, at $50/750. And, while the Grand Erasmus was also a very nice wine, I don't like it at $170/750. Not enough (if any) difference in quality between the Laurel and the Grand Erasmus to justify paying 3 1/2 the price for the higher-end wine.
February 7, 2015 - Tasting pour at Winestore in Raleigh on their machine. It was a little too warm, but had great extraction, wonderful raspberry and cherry flavors and had likely been on the machine long enough to open up some. Great juice !
January 31, 2015 - searingly tannic and young. Great red fruit. Nice acid. Earth. Needs 10+ years in the cellar. Complex nose. Mind blowing.
September 21, 2014 - Nose of ripe red cherries, balsamic, licorice, great tension with iodine in the nose... Very complex minerality, looks like multiple types of minerality are showing, beautiful sappy red cherries... with aeration, some more balsamic appears with cèpes de Bordeaux. Very nice sappy cherries and mineral finsh. BRAVO. Conservative 97/100