1990 Château Gruaud Larose
Community Tasting Note
Connaître Likes this wine:
Monday, June 30, 2014 - I just came back from a beautiful evening with friends and a bottle of 1990 Château Gruaud Larose. Words cannot convey the freshness and vibrancy of the profound bouquet and ethereal effortlessness of the palate. “Otherworldly” comes close, and so does “perfection”. But what constitutes a perfect wine? We could agree upon four elements:
1. Richness: When you are tasting a wine, you want to experience as many different things as possible. And yes, some wines simply have more to say than others. A perfect wine is the opposite of one-dimensional. It is a 25 meters long 5 Star Hotel Buffet.
2. Voltage/Intensity: Even if the wine offers a variety of impressions, it stays uninteresting as long as these impressions do not go into detail. I personally love visiting churches. Not because I am religious, I am rather the opposite, but because the architecture is fascinating me. If I am visiting a new city, I do not only want to see the churches from outside, but also from inside. The very same thing counts for wine.
3. Length: So far we have said that we want to experience as many things and as detailed as possible. However, if this just happens for a very short moment, the wine will still not blow your mind. A perfect wine is not a falling star, which you may see for this very short moment and which then makes you happy. No, what you want to have is a ten minutes long winegasm.
4. Balance: Imagine an orchestra. Everyone has the same notes in front of him or her. And now everyone starts playing as loud as they can. Okay, I think you know what I mean? Even if it craps your attention for a moment, it will not take long time until you leave the room. The same counts for wine. If the drums are the tannins, the violin the acidity, and the clarinet the fruit, you don’t want to let them do what they want. We need a director. Whether it is the oak, the vintage or the age, which is the director of our wine orchestra, it is him, who set the agenda, regulates the volume, and guides the interplay. So balance is the fourth element of what constitutes a perfect wine.
As this list is surely not completed, please feel free to share your ideas and thoughts or to discuss what constitutes a perfect wine.
Coming back to our bottle: Made in the image of god, this wine is pure perfection.
Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue (4,884 views)
