Community Tasting Note

• campingfleurie Likes this wine: 89 points

  December 5, 2012 - Don't drink this without air or time. A sip on opening showed Port and light purple fruit; quite front-palate, with a puff of soft tannin and a wateriness of loose acidity. Decanted off sediment and back into bottle. With meal two hours later it had improved, but wasn't at all showing its full hand. Hints of negatives in small notes of the Port, brown sugar and jam, but those are then suffused by salt/iodine; the palate is more extended, does finish pleasantly dry and there's a hint of tighter Provencal fruit and herbs in the finish. I also checked the next morning and evening. The morning was by far the peak. Fine purple fruit, herbal, Christmas cake. Then a strikingly classy puff in the mid-palate: changing the scene, filling the mouth, introducing weightlessness and setting the stage for a finish which extended and lingered with the essence of dark raspberry, cool herbs, faint mocha chocolate and liquorice. Just a little sweetness and warmth of liqueur, but bound together with a little firm tannin and with delicate acidity which cleanses. That's a great manifestation - really exciting. By the evening sip it had oxidised away to be neutral and tarry. Drink now with 5 hours of conventional airing, or leave 4 more years and drink over the following c8. Will always need some air because it has structure and it has over-ripe edges which need to blow off. Rating 89 for first night; but I'd say can be 94-95 with optimal treatment.

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