May 10, 2024 - Private Dinner, The Brisbane Club. This wine opened beautifully with a persistent deep crimson colour and a scented nose of blackcurrant, blueberry, dark cherry, violets and cedar. The palate reflects the aromatics of the nose with a spherical impression of rich fruits and floral notes balanced by a long fine spine of gossamer tannins and persistent touches of cedar and dark chocolate. There is lovely purity and balance here with that touch of opulent merlot that makes the best Palmers so desirable and individual.
April 18, 2024 - This bottle did not perform as well as the one I had last July. Bottle variation or taster variation? Nose seemed more muted than I remember.
April 13, 2024 - A bit of a disappointment to be honest as I love Palmer and great vintages like 2000 should be an absolute whopper. But this started off with nice promising dark birdeaux classic cassis and earth flavours but never went anywhere, just twisted and turned and got a little more classic and old school over time, I could never find energy or oomph, in the bottle anyway. Don’t shoot me but ended up splashing a bit of crunchy cru Beaujolais into it to add some life and then it jumped up a few points.
March 29, 2024 - Tasted blind. Took a while to open up and straight itself out - on open it almost had Chambolle character then later a little La Chapelle fruitiness and femininity - then about 90 minutes righted itself to clearly being a Margaux from a solid vintage. Red and blue fruits, touch of cedar, beautiful tannin structure and incredible length. Really enjoyable.
March 24, 2024 - Deep garnet red. Complex cherry berry tobacco cigar box and sweet spices full bodied with soft tannins. At its apogee but no hurry needed.
January 31, 2024 - Pnp before dinner…
Medium garnet with no browning at the rim.
Rich blackberry fruit aromas, earth and light barnyard (that appears to blow off with a couple minutes in the glass). Iron jumps out of the glass, pencil shavings too. A fresh green Cab note, well placed in the mix. Medium tannin, medium plus acid. Fruit from the nose doesn’t follow to the palate immediately.
Day 2, 100ml left, a really pure blackberry aroma. Shows as a wine not overdone or bombastic. Cherry blossom aroma.
December 6, 2023 - 2000 horizontal featuring Leovilles (Las Cases, Poyferre, Barton), Palmer, Lynch-Bages, La Mission Haut-Brion, Latour and Les Forts de Latour. Palmer second choice as WOTN narrowly behind Latour. Superb florals and finish. Margaux characteristics in spades. Bravo. Drink or hold. Will improve.
November 28, 2023 - badly corked - unusual for Palmer
November 25, 2023 - Ruby red with significant sediment in the bottle. After three hour decant, there was cedar, smoke and tobacco on the nose. Red fruit flavors. Tannins in check. Stunning wine that still has some life ahead. Thanks Ann and Mike for sharing
November 5, 2023 - I foreswore to leave this alone for another couple of years, but here I am again 11 months on. That said, I bought two cases back in the day, and I always like to enjoy a wine at different stages of its development. It has reached a stage over the last year where a 5 or 6 hour decant will display most of its glory. The nose is heady and unmistakably Palmer with cherry and cedar underpinned by violet wafts. The palate is nearly integrated and is complex and multilayered. The finish is still initially hard to fathom with residual tannin, but once you break through it shows incredible depth and pushes past 60 seconds with unwavering balance. As mentioned previously, I think this and the 2005 could become the next generation 1983. If you have a few bottles it is well worth digging into this now, but another couple of years will be transformational. 96+