Community Tasting Note

• honest bob wrote: 91 points

  August 27, 2019 - From 75cl, excellent cork, decanted 1 hour, continued to improve until final drop. I think recent TN scores are inflationary, but there is no doubt that this bottle is a model of loveliness, a fully-mature, silky-smooth, red-fruited, not-too-heavily-american-oaked dream of traditional Rioja. Gorgeous, but let's remember that there are still brighter stars in the 2001 LRA firmament (904 / 809) and other superb 2001s (Ygay Historic Vintage, Tondonia Gran Reserva) which are still to be released, and will surely stake out the mid-90s range more exactly. 91P

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2 Comments

• Tannatastic commented:

  8/27/19, 3:36 PM - I hear what you're saying, but the higher price doesn't guarantee a better wine, just better raw materials. I for one think think the 2001 Ardanza is a superior wine to it's stablemate the 904 from the same vintage, for example (I haven't yet opened my 890's). When at it's best, it's most definitely a once in a generation bottling.

• honest bob commented:

  8/28/19, 1:05 AM - Thanks for the comment. Yes, I do agree that the more expensive wine from the same producer, drunk at the same time after the vintage, isn't always the better wine at the point of drinking!
  
  My remark about scores reflects my own approach to rating, so I suppose I should explain it, without wishing to imply that anyone else's systems are better or worse than mine. I always factor in development potential with further ageing, and some qualities which I personally like a lot, like "complexity" (definable, perhaps, as "resonance" combined with "length", or a "kaleidoscopic" sweep of colours on the mid-palate/finish). Once we are talking about the rarefied 90+ range of wines, these are the things which IMHO sort out the merely gorgeous from the truly spectacular.
  
  So much for theory, back to practice. When I last tasted the 2001 LRA 904 (in 2014) it certainly had its nose ahead of the 2001 Ardanza, both in terms of development potential (10-20 years) and "resonance", so I scored it 93. And the 2001 Castillo Ygay (standard release) was just stunning a couple of months ago, for me a landmark wine, so I gave 94P(+). If they ever make a Historic Vintages release (which I might just be around to try in 25 years, if I can afford it by then) I imagine (on the strength of the 1970) that it will be even more to my taste. My experience with wines in the super-league (Latour/Petrus/Vega Sicilia/DRC etc.) is, alas, VERY limited, but on the strength of the most memorable (does that mean "best"?) wines I have tasted (a 1999 Charmes Chambertin from Denis Bachelet comes to mind, also a 1997 Clos St. Denis, or a Le Montrachet from the same vintage, all of which I remember giving 94-95 points) I am absolutely convinced that there are bottles out there worth 96, 97, 98, 99 or – yes – even 100P. Even if I haven't yet had the chance to drink them myself. Along the way there are couple of bottles which knocked me so completely and utterly sideways at the time, even if they were "objectively" quite modest, that I gave an absurdly high rating. A 1999 Tojaj comes to mind, which blew may mind, even if almost certainly wasn't worth the 97P I gave it back in 2008. But that's one of the pleasures of being an amateur, getting things wrong and not having to apologise!

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