Community Tasting Note
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jpcairney wrote: 85 points
July 26, 2008 - This wine has been on my mind since I tried the first bottle a month or so ago. Back then, I thought lack of decanting time had something to do with its ‘teasing’ nature; it hints at lushness and fruit but doesn’t follow through and ‘go all the way’. This time I decanted for 2 hours, but even then the wine still wouldn’t let its metaphorical hair down and strut its stuff.
That said, I certainly didn’t dislike it. On the nose: kerosene and fruit, although, again, the latter was elusive and needed patience and concentration to capture. In the mouth it is smooth, with a faint crackling of pepper on the back end and the merest hint of cassis. No real follow through and the flavour doesn’t linger for long.
With hindsight, perhaps this wine needs to be approached with a different attitude: rather than view it as a big, bold powerhouse (much like the stock and trade of Australia, California, Italy, Spain and Bordeaux) is this perhaps a more old-fashioned wine, of an age when subtlety and finesse was more important that the need to assault one’s senses with truckloads of fruit, alcohol and tannin?
I still feel the wine is engrained with an innate quality and a sense of intrigue. If nothing else, it has made me ponder and think long after the bottle was finished.3,830 views