5/3/2024 - mrm27 wrote:

This wine was in excellent condition and carried classic Cabernet Franc notes, but with nicely resolved tannins and crisp but ripe fruit. Very good.

4/26/2024 - mrm27 wrote:

Very enjoyable indeed - good fruit, good oak, good length, nice balance. Good with food, good without.

4/6/2024 - mrm27 Likes this wine:

Delicious; lovely poise and balance between fruit and oak.

3/29/2024 - mrm27 Likes this wine:

This will repay ageing a bit - very good wine. Very ripe and slightly sweet, and even this young it is very drinkable.

3/30/2024 - mrm27 Likes this wine:

a slightly strange wine, but perhaps it just struggle to cope with the food (Indian) I drank it with. Notes of all the varietals, though Viognier the most subtle element. Will need to drink it on its own or with something less punchy to appreciate it properly, I think. On balance, I like it.

3/23/2024 - mrm27 wrote:

Delicious expression of Gamay - lovely cherry and raspberry notes. Great slightly chilled.

2/11/2024 - mrm27 wrote:

Serviceable and inoffensive Sauvignon - easy drinking with decent balance.

1/30/2024 - mrm27 wrote:

Delicious, crisp, ripe, well-balanced wine.

12/28/2013 - mrm27 wrote:

This has faded and is in its last days (poor storage?). There is good Grenache characteristics on first opening, but the fruit lacks the oomph of a great CdP.

12/25/2013 - mrm27 Likes this wine:

Quite an aggressive, agricultural nose on first opening, and the fruit is rather dominated by this throughout. Even drunk much later, over time, the farmyardiness doesn't depart, though it gives it some greater complexity, while the wine lightens a little too much.

12/24/2013 - mrm27 Likes this wine:

This is a truly fabulous wine, oozing class. Glorious Riesling aromas, with perfect drinkability. It possesses perfect balance that is utterly moreish.

12/28/2013 - mrm27 Likes this wine:

This wine was absolutely excellent. Lovely ripeness, great balance and 'breed'. If it lacked a little power, it made up for it in elegance. A really pleasing drink.

12/28/2013 - mrm27 Likes this wine:

Like the other bottles of this wine I have consumed, this has pleasing sweetness and flavour, but lacks a little acidity for my taste.

12/24/2013 - mrm27 Likes this wine:

This is a gloriously concentrated example of Chardonnay. It has a Maconnais waxiness to it, but a glorious, fresh and crisp flavour and a long finish.

12/25/2013 - mrm27 Likes this wine:

This is an excellent sherry. A gorgeous blend of the richness of a sweet sherry with the dryness of the oloroso. This has beautiful balance. It is a good wine for fruit, I would guess, not quite a match for the Christmas Pudding we had with it. This is elegant, but rich too.

12/23/2013 - mrm27 wrote:

I tasted this on the day of opening then four days later, after a small amount remained in a water bottle into which I'd poured some at a dinner. Given those circumstances, I can report happily on a magnificent wine that would convert the most sceptical non-sweet-wine-drinker in an instant.

This wine is a beautiful golden hue, crystal clear and with an inviting, complex and concentrated nose. In the mouth, this concentration is the hallmark; it has all the flavour of a great Sauternes in a great year, and the concentration is balanced by exquisite acidity. A stellar example of this appellation, with a long life ahead of it.

10/10/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

I thought this surprisingly narrow and acidic for a wine from this producer. Perhaps better with food?

10/10/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

Noone seems to be able to agree on this wine - is it heavily botrytised, or barely at all? The average seems quite low for a wine that I found to be of excellent quality, with breed as well as that hedonistic pleasure that the best Sauternes provides.

Glorious colour, lovely pure and clean nose, fine balance and good finish. Perhaps RP's rating of the wine has unnecessarily prejudiced some tasters?

10/10/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

Not as fine as its cousin from the 2002 vintage, but there are signs of it here, a honeyed, well proportioned wine which offers pleasure on its own, as well as with food.

10/10/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

This is a fabulously hedonistic and rich wine, with an extraordinary individuality. But I wouldn't (and couldn't) wait to drink it.

10/10/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

Corked.

10/10/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

Last bottle of this represented the struggle between grape and oak, but the balance came through and this was good.

10/10/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

Foursquare, tannic and powerful, but with rewarding fruit and depth.

A little dry, but excellent with food.

10/10/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

Fantastic value wine. Chewy fruit, ripe and clean. Excellent.

10/10/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

This is clearly a well made wine, but rather simple and foursquare the moment. It's possible that the peak window will be narrow, but it should provide excellent accompaniment to food while it's there. Give it three years.

10/10/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

This was excellent, and cut off in its prime. Fleshy, rich and intensely rewarding.

10/10/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

After some initial bottle stink had blown off, this revealed itself as a mature, but still vibrant and ripe wine, though probably (perhaps due to storage?) on the wane.

There was a lovely richness and complexity that made it a joy to drink.

10/10/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

For a supposedly mediocre vintage, especially compoared to the 05, this was a pleasant surprise. It was better than that, really. Classically proportioned, full of vitality and promise. Opened as an early sighter.

10/9/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

Slightly jammy, but with proper aeration this rather simplistic flavour develops some complexity. Very pleasant though.

10/9/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

Real class. Poise, balance.

10/9/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

Power and punch, but with magnificent concentration and balance.

10/9/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

Varyingly delicious and mature with occasional disappointment.

10/9/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

Very enjoyable, with some complexity.

10/9/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

Serviceable but uninteresting.

10/9/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

Power, precision, ripeness. Concentration, freshness and pure Australian. Excellent wine.

10/9/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

Delicious, but infanticide nonetheless. Great, sweet and attractive fruit. Fleshy and ripe, needs an awful lot of time.

6/6/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

Eggy and off.

6/6/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

Rich, ripe, Cabernet Franc-like green pepper on the nose, fleshy and rich on the palate, with gorgeous sweet fruit balanced by grippy tannic structure. Many, many years of life ahead, needs time to develop complexity as it's very foursquare at the moment. Delicious, though.

5/21/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

Another monster of a wine, with lovely definition and power. Ripe fruit, but dry rather than sweet. This is in a secondary stage of development, and probably at its peak. The dryness made me think that the downward slope might not be as pleasant as the upward one would have been, but the tannins suggest that the peak will be a long plateau, to mistake metaphors!

5/22/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

Given Montrose's reputation for big and brutal wines, this was concentrated but rather 'feminine', and very lovely for it. It had excellent structure, lifted fruit, lovely definition.

6/6/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

Ebay purchase. Strange one this: the foil was practically welded to the glass of the bottle and had to be scraped off, the top of the cork smelled of crème brûlée and yet the cork was genuine. The wine was surprisingly yellow, given its age (lighter in colour in fact than the Rieussec 1996 alongside it). The wine itself was delicious: lightish, it's true, but with a good deal of fruit. The acidity was lower than perfect, so in fact the wine went quite well with the various sweet puddings it accompanied. I prefer the stronger style of Barsac/Sauternes, but am a pushover for almost all sweet Bordeaux in this class.

5/25/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

Glorious elegant claret, at a delicious peak, I would say. Lovely acidity and complexity. Excellent food wine. More open than the C-S.

5/25/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

Not had many 2003 crus classés, but I imagine many to be like this: slightly blowsy, thick and juicy with low acidity and a somewhat New World style. The only other vintage I've had of this was the 1996, which while also a warm vintage, is far more elegant and 'classic' than this. Still, it went down very well and while I don't think there's a great race on to drink it, it's got a decent lifespan ahead.

5/25/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

Firmer and 'fuller' than the L-B, but less immediately attractive. I think this wine has a long life ahead of it, and was showing only signs of greatness. Infanticide, probably.

6/6/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

rought along as 'insurance' this did not disappoint. Really stunning wine with many years ahead. Thick and rich, with high concentration, still massive tannin and slow-revealed fruit. A fabulous wine.

5/25/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

Probably the pick of the wines of the evening for the sheer immediate enjoyment of it. This was fatter, richer, more complex and fruity than any others we had. Lovely depth of flavour, great length and balance, and with some time ahead, judging by the tannic grip.

6/6/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

Red, bricky colour. Clear. Nose was powerful and expressive, although a certain leafy/mushroominess was present to start with. This wine showed considerable concentration and no mean elegance and was the best 1970 yet tasted. High acidity without VA, and without being dried out, this gave considerable pleasure. The earthy quality noted on the nose was present on the finish, but this dissipated after an hour in the decanter. Lovely wine.

5/25/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

How could this be? Better than the Lafite, with more depth of flavour and lifted fruit. Leafy, but attractive with it. Glorious old claret colour.

5/22/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

Faded brick red colour with an alcoholic nose. The lightness of colour is matched by the lightness of flavour, which is slightly funky now (consistent with a bottle opened two or three years ago), and which is disappointing. However, the acidity is freshening and the finish is clean enough for it to be a decent accompaniment to food.

6/6/2010 - mrm27 wrote:

Biggest disappointment, as the cork fell into the bottle on removing the foil. Muddy and unappealing, which was a real let-down since it's meant to be a star of the vintage. We sipped nervously. It certainly had weight, but no fruit.