December 12, 2023 - Always a bit under the radar, even my experience with Monbrison was never that outstanding. BUT: the 2000 is really a different game. I would rank this among the best 10 Margaux tastings yet. It’s just the purest expression of what makes Margaux sometimes so magic. From the first moment this wine performs, over hours. Great job, full stop!
May 6, 2023 - wine is definitively over it's peak. pungent barnyard smell and taste, no fruit left. Became a little more approacheable after 1 hour of decanting, but overall I wouldn't recommend purchasing. if you have this wine, either throw away or try at your own risk.
October 30, 2020 - Afterwork blindtasting: Red, brownish edge, high intensity. Relatively mature nose with leather, stable, toasted oak, dark berries in a subtle but concentrated mix. Medium plus acidity. Medium plus tannins, small and sandy polished to velvet. Fruity, integrated oak, leather, black fruit, plums and black currant, beetroots. Taut, concentrated balance. Beautiful!
October 10, 2020 - Totally thrown off tasting this blind. It had these mulled berry and pepper and sun dried tomatoes that made me think mid 2000s California Zinfandel actually. Chewing tobacco and clove and sweet cocoa. Enjoyable but unique to feral in its appeal. A real puzzler to taste blind.
May 28, 2020 - decanted. brambles, blackcurrant, biscuit and plum, earth, leather, forest floor, a little damp cellar, dusty asian spices...it's juicy, fleshy, tannins are still grainy and grippy but integrated and travel with the black fruits, leathery notes on the palate as well. not going to set the world on fire but is pleasing and pleasurable.
April 28, 2020 - From Coravin. On the nose brambles and wild blackcurrant, slight tomato leaf, black tea, sweet spice, a little leather and stewy underpin. In the mouth it's got medium plus intensity acidity, brambles, wild blackcurrant, a little black cherry, some liquorice, wonderful drying spicy tannins are very pleasantly balanced with the flavours. Yum.
February 21, 2020 - Still plenty of fruit and balance. Very pleasant and enjoyable.
May 20, 2019 - From Coravin. Aromas of graphite, brambly fruit and a little cherry, sweet spice, a little black tea & caramel and leathery notes. In the mouth it's savoury with brambly Autumnal fruit, soft tannic grip and slightly salty liquorice on the finish. Pleasant.
May 17, 2019 - Hat die LAgerung gut überstanden, auch nach weiteren 4 Tagen im Kühlschrank eher noch besser.
February 8, 2019 - The first real wine I had was in 1975. It was a '64 Talbot my father bought for me and I believe it was about $8-10. It tasted strange and vaguely haunting, teasingly tart and bitter, with lean fruit. Not necessarily the stuff of legend, but enough to evoke curiosity.
Fast forward to this, my 1500th tasting note on cellartracker.com, dating back to March 2006. I guess the Talbot made its impact, since almost 90% of the notes are for French or Italian wines, although in the intervening decades Burgundy has far eclipsed Bordeaux as a personal preference (over 400 notes or 28% of the total). I reckon I'm approaching 400,000 words spilled here. Maybe this will be my shot at "notoriety"
The color is a fairly consistent bricky red, without much orange and no brown at the rim. So far so good. Sweet cassis and plummy fruit on the nose (nice surprise), with prominent graphite and tobacco and a little mint. It's undeniably the Bordeaux of my youth. Medium bodied, the fruit holding its own again the mineral backdrop, with now very soft and yielding tannin with just enough strength to keep it in good standing. The 12.5% alcohol of a bygone era, with the claret-like refreshment it can still convey.
As I glance down I see the community has consigned it to the scrapheap with a drinking window ending in 2017. Not so fast. Between bottle variation and poor storage it's easy to be fooled-I certainly have myself many times over. But this isn't toast yet. I think a well-stored bottle could go another three years or more depending on your tolerance for maturity and secondary/tertiary flavors, kind of like what I'm hoping for from my wife over the next few hundred notes.