12/8/23, 11:56 PM - Nice to hear from you again. He liked it. He sensed acorns, cherries, lemon, oranges and raspberries. Have you tried one recently? I saw your favourable notes from more than a decade ago.
12/9/23, 1:53 AM - I didn't decanter it. The wine had no sediment. The wine was opened and a glass was immediately poured so the surface area of the wine in the bottle was at its maximum. This seemed enough for the wine to open to its full state in 45 minutes. If it was decanted, if may have opened up sooner but then probably faded earlier. It is a credit to Dave and Heather Watson setting up the winery in 1973 to emulate Bordeaux vineyards. In my opinion, it has been an outstanding success. I hope you enjoy the bottle you have.
10/11/20, 12:56 PM - Glad it was useful
7/26/20, 2:19 AM - Thanks. It’s personal preference. I like it around this temperature and I have recently read that Jeff Leve, a wine critic who has tasted a lot of Bordeaux, suggests 15.5C for Pontet Canet. It’s just what you like.
10/8/17, 12:43 PM - In general, I only write notes for the wines that score the highest ratings. Therefore, there are wines with lesser scores that do not appear in my tasting notes. I stand by my scores and over the last 25 years of wine tasting they have proven to be consistent in serial and blind tastings. There are a few wines that I score highly that I also have in large quantities but most like this one I have only a few left and do not intend to sell them. For me this is a 100 point wine.
10/11/17, 1:05 AM - I'm happy with my scores. I rarely sell wine so would not benefit from score inflation. Many of my scores are similar to well known wine critics such as Robert Parker for the same wine so I don't think I am deluding myself. Robert Parker scored 100 points Chateau Pavie 2000,Pontet Canet 2009,2010,Pape Clement 2009 and Leoville Poyferre 2009. I scored the same or similar for these wines and others. It's not score inflation it's just drinking good wine.Life's too short to drink bad wine.
10/11/17, 11:29 AM - I see your point sunnylea57. In wines where my notes make up a large proportion of the total notes, I will place the score in the body of the notes and leave the score box not rated.
10/21/15, 1:32 PM - I can see why you think that but no. I have no financial or for that matter emotional interest in the wine. I have no involvement in the wine industry. I'm interested in documenting changes in wine as it ages. You can drink the same bottle of wine on consecutive days and the perception of the wine varies. By assessing more bottles of wine in a short period of time you can account for this variation and therefore detect genuine changes in the wine as it ages. To increase the accuracy further I usually try to buy the wine in batches at one time. Unfortunately, I have nearly run out of this wine. One long term project I am doing is following the development of the 2004 John Riddoch and I have several cases left. All of these were purchased from the winery and cellared in a temperature controlled cellar. I have been following that wine for several years and it had a very interesting development with a phase where it shut down and also a relatively rapid development of aged characters. These aspects of its evolution would be difficult to detect with infrequent tastings. I have notes on this wine on this site if you are interested.
4/30/15, 3:54 AM - Excellent!
1/31/15, 9:50 AM - Agreed.
1/25/15, 12:48 PM - On the ground.
1/25/15, 2:21 PM - I'm not surprised the ratings vary considerably for this wine. Most of the other wines also have a significant range of ratings. This probably reflects many things including the experience of the tasters, how the score is allocated for various components of the wine, the state of the wine ( has it been poorly transported or cellared,was it served to hot or too cold) or more simple was the taster too drunk to accurately assess the wine. Even amongst the professional wine tasters there can be large differences in ratings. I find that my scores roughly correlate with those of Robert Parker and Jeff Leve. Robert Parker scored this wine 94 as did Jeff Leve whereas I gave it 95.
1/10/15, 1:39 AM - Yes. 3 1/2 left. I have no doubt you will be imbibing some.
12/31/14, 10:17 PM - I know the feeling. Nithya arrived in 2007 and I couldn't find anything with the required quality and longevity. Luckily Gita was born in 2009!
5/18/14, 9:15 PM - Thanks for the comments and taking an interest. Most wines have a window of time when they are at their best after they are opened. The subjective assessment that the wine is at its best is mainly based on the complexity of flavours and aroma,the balance of the wine, the intensity and the integration of all the elements. Once the wine moves out of this window in time the above elements start deteriorating usually gradually. I notice that the complexity is one of the first to go. You may no longer be able to smell or taste that mint or truffle note that was present before. The wine becomes more muted in intensity and starts losing balance becoming overly sweet sour or bitter. Oxidised characters start creeping in and after a few hours I usually find it undrinkable. I guess you could say the wine has fallen apart. I have predominantly tasted Australian cabernet based wines mostly sourced from the winery and cellared well over the last few years. I tend to decanter the bottle then sample a little of the wine immediately and then at 15 minute intervals. I have noticed that for these Australian wines the window when they are at their best usually occurs between 45 minutes and 120 minutes after opening at a serving temperature of 16 degrees. Some wines have a very short window of around 15 minutes while others can be as long 45 minutes. For this wine, the Woodlands Margaret 2007, the window appears to be around 30 minutes sometimes between 60 minutes to 90 minutes and sometimes 75 minutes to 105 minutes. I do understand that individual tastes vary and so it does not surprise me that some drinkers will enjoy their wine better the next day but this certainly does not apply to me.
4/6/14, 3:19 PM - I agree. I tasted this wine in 2011 and had the same experience.
12/27/13, 2:32 AM - A few bottles left but I doubt they will last the long haul :)
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