Community Tasting Note
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mjmal wrote:
February 14, 2009 - This is a very special wine for me and my wife, having been the white wine we had at our wedding reception in 2000. This was the one bottle from that day we thought to hold onto, but we decided it just couldn’t remain in the cellar any longer--despite the wonderful memories it sat there representing. So, we popped the cork. First off, it looks fairly healthy, but is a bit burnished gold in color. What is amazing to me is that despite being 9 years older, we both immediately “recognized” the aromas and taste of the wine that was at its core—it is just now darker in tone and more advanced across the spectrum of qualities. It is still obviously complex aromatically—bringing back those old memories of vanilla bean, graham crackers, clove, nutmeg, lemon drops, mango, butterscotch, pistachio nut shells and the tiniest hint of botrytis-tinged meringue. In the mouth, it is full-bodied and very creamy, still showing a good deal of flamboyant oak treatment and lots of toasty brown spices. It is rather luscious still, with a lot of glycerin that coats the glass. It fills the mouth with layers and waves of key lime pie, meringue, apricot and oak spice flavors. This wine is still a power-house in many ways, but it is nicely balanced by some of the nuances of flavor that probably have emerged with age. It has lost some freshness, I’m sure, but it still delivers a lot of flavor, body and drive. It was best at about one hour after opening, after which the texture began to turn a bit mealy and rougher-hewn. The alcohol was never apparent, though, and the wine certainly does not appear to be cracking up or anything. Still, I have to say that I really wish the oak had integrated better, as it gets rather tiresome after a while to have the finish so dominated by oak flavoring. It just detracts from the luscious flavors it offers up through the mid-palate. Still, we were both rather gratified that the wine had good life left and we were quite happy to re-live those memories!
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