Community Tasting Note

SineQuaNon Likes this wine:

Saturday, April 18, 2020 - Continuing my dive into my older stash of Carlisle. This wine has grown and grown on me through the years, to the extend that I actually find it on par with most of the SV bottlings nowadays. Such a tremendous value in world class wine! It was thus with a lot of curiosity and excitement to try this old one. Has it stood the test of time? Was it as good back then as I found it in the last five vintages?
In short: Yes and yes! It was double decanted 15 minutes prior to serving and I just had a small sip upon opening. At that point it needed ti stretch its back and realize now was the time to wake up and leave the bottle. It fortunately did, and while the nose showed a lovely matured profile of development and still some intact zinberries, the palate was a powerful, fresh and full bodied explosion without much age showing in the notes. The palate however, was such a seemless integration of fully mellowed tannins, balancing but well hidden acidity, full body and almost unctuous texture. This partly was a result of a slight sensation of RS. It turns out that this vintage actually had 3,7 g/L of RS, so just above the detectable threshold. I would probably even have guessed a little higher, but it didn’t detract from my experience and it wasn’t too much. Perhaps it was also due to us having mustard and sugar coated ham for dinner, with which a bit of RS probably just made the wine an even better match. Overall, Just a beautiful, perfectly mature Zinfandel and I find it deserves 92 points, just as I have found almost all recent vintages.

Post a Comment / View SineQuaNon's profile
Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue (1,504 views)