Community Tasting Note
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cassetta wrote: 96 points
August 6, 2005 - I opened decanted this bottle a little past noon, left it in the cellar and consumed the wine over the next twelve hours. The first pour was little under whelming. Bright ruby in color with some graphite and blackberries on the nose. On the palate there were minerals accents with a smooth balanced finish. I continued to check in on the wine about every hour or so to see how is was developing. After about 3 hours in the decanter the wine really started to open up and became darker with some smoke and dark chocolate on the nose but the palate was still a little retrained. At the 4 hour mark it really started to blossom. The color was now a dark opaque. The nose was bursting with coffee and chocolate with the blackberries still lingering in the background. The chocolate was now also coming through on the palate along with the minerals. The wine was superbly balanced with a looonnngg smooth finish. After 5 hours this wine was completely singing and was a mocha berry cappuccino. Rich lush and delicious. This young baby completely blew away the '91 Phelps Insignia, '96 Pahlmeyer and the '96 Opus (the Opus was the best of those three) which I had opened for dinner. The wine held onto its explosiveness up through the 9 hour mark at which time the intensity started to gradually fade. I finished my last glass a little before midnight along with a taste of the other wines mentioned. Although it's fruit had faded some it was still a great glass of wine. Whereas all the Cali's, which were opened over 4 hour later and not decanted, had completely faded away. RMP pretty much nailed this one.
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