November 24, 2021 - Popped and poured.
Brick red color.Mushrooms, earth and loam on the nose. Fruit is gone but tons of secondary and tertiary flavors. Graphite, forest floor. This is far more interesting than one might expect. Actually kinda enjoyable.
May 19, 2021 - Declining. Past its best.
January 24, 2021 - Popped and poured. Dark purple color, raisiny nose. Amazing depth of flavor for a 28 year old California merlot! Overripe notes of raisin, forest, ash and cedar pencil.
December 24, 2020 - Found a few bottles stashed in a corner, and gave one a try with low expectations. Decanted for an hour.
Bricked edges. Dried fig nose. Fruit is mostly gone, leaving herbal notes: forest floor, leather roast meat. Surprisingly good in a subdued, aged way.
September 21, 2017 - Alive and lovely, lots of fruit still.
August 25, 2017 - Mid mahogany to bricking rim
Noted age and development with charcoal, cola sweets, stewed fruit and cabbage. The palate is a touch better but past its prime, with plump fruit, quite polished and a reasonable length. Pity as sounded like a winner in its day!
March 3, 2016 - Dead, but not as dead as the last one.
June 30, 2015 - Truly a wonderful surprise to see how well this wine has aged. Still plenty of dark fruits with lots of secondary and tertiary layers of wonderful complexity. Drank well from bottle with no decanting for 2-3 hours. Very little sediment.
April 23, 2015 - The wine is popped and aired for a good three hours before drinking. It pours a deep garnet with a rusted orange, salmon hue and thick long legs. The power and the concentration of the nose is incredibly noticeable as soon as the cork is removed. An explosion of strawberries, cranberries, licorice, graphite, oak, cedar, and smoke just pops out from the bottle. On the palate, the wine yields velvety, well-integrated tannins, replete with an unctuous texture that just coats every crevice of the mouth. There are flavors of strawberries, potpurri, brett and cigar box. Acidity is quite low but the finish is long with a sweetness that lingers on. A very captivating and intellectually interesting wine that drinks like a well-engineered St Emilion.
January 23, 2015 - Past it's prime. Fruit slightly hanging on, tannins gone.
Garnet colored, with moderate sediment in the bottle. The body is light/medium. The wine has flabby texture, which finishes short. Low acidity.