September 21, 2017 - This wine continues to be pleasure giving but it is quite frail now. The color has picked by more brown but the wine is neither oxidized nor maderized. Lighter but scented with soft smoke and woodsiness. Great with the cheese course. Drink up. I am down to my last one from the full case.
September 15, 2015 - Now very mature but no sign of maderization or oxidation. The wine decanted beautifully clear and still nicely red. The bouquet is attractively cedary and complex with great secondary flavors. I would not want to age this wine much longer but it is completely a pleasure giving and scented and mature wine of great charm. Some tasters spoke of smoke. Some dead leaf and mocha. It is in some ways like an old Burgundy. Not a lot of fruit at this stage but some sour cherry. A good old lady of a wine and enjoyable.
May 20, 2015 - I bought this wine over 20 years ago as a full case. At first this wine was blasé in all ways and not with much flavor interest. I set the rest of the case a set in a very cold cellar and began open another one only a couple of years ago upon reading very positive reviews on cellartracker. My first bottle in the last two years was most impressive. The wine had picked up a great deal of complexity. My last taste was several months ago. The wine was bricky in color on the edge but not out of the ordinary for a warmer climate wine at this stage of maturity. The bouquet and taste were consistent with cedar, leather, dried fruit and minerality. The perfume was very huge. Tannins were soft at this stage but the overall wine was balanced and very complex. The fruit is the very evolved kind but it is not lacking if you like an Old World mature wine. My last half a dozen tries have been consistent. This wine will not improve from this state but my cold cellar in able to hold it in good condition. I have only two bottles left and I shall very much enjoy them. Hope both will continue to be ok.
September 19, 2013 - Popped and decanted, then left to breathe as we finished off some Lassaigne Champagne, this was aromatically gorgeous from the get go. Heady aromas of meat, iron and herbal notes danced with sour red fruits, however the palate was all blood and guts, with those red fruits poking up through the disjointed whole. With some vigorous swirling (is there any other kind?), it began to come together, and seemed to settle down into a gorgeous mix of fruit, earth and blood, very Southern yet not at the same time. Much more delicate than anticipated, with soft tannins and a mid-length finish, and a very pretty mouthfeel.
I found it really interesting how the contrasts between what I expected, where it's from, and what it actually ended up tasting like played out on the palate.
January 18, 2013 - I loved this wine. Deep and foresty, earth and pine, raspberryish fruit. Amazingly delicate and autumnal. Along with others here, this drinks more like a Burgundy than Bordeaux, and amazingly, in a totally different vernacular than the Rhone. Amazingly delicate. A lot of sediment, decanted gently, and poured. Maybe this wine would've developed more in the glass if given a bit more time, but I was concerned that it might fall apart at this age and given how delicate it appeared. Totally harmonious and well integrated, if a bit muted and fading.
July 13, 2012 - Thin, fading fruit but still nice (red fruit), nice spice, slight garrigue, really well knit - nicely integrated, light but lingering. Really enjoyable.
March 21, 2012 - Wineberserkers Eat Duck (Peking Duck House (Midtown), NYC): Palish bricked blood. Big, perfumed herbal nose, fascinating and appealing; rubber tires, white pepper, soy sauce, wow! Big palate, too, cheesy, sweat socks, tannic and definitely light on fruit, but still cheery to me. Medium body, with surprisingly good length. Past its best, at least in the fruit department, but interesting and certainly worthwhile.
February 5, 2012 - Coueur rubis, avec un pourtour définitivement âgé. Le vin au niveau de la couleur ressemble à un vieux bourgogne. Au nez, des arômes d'écorces d'orange et de clous de girofle domine à l'ouverture, sur des nuances d'humus. Le nez est ouvert mais tend avec le temps sur des notes un peu bizarres de sel de céleri. En bouche, l'attaque est sur l'acidité avec des tannins inexistants ou presque. La bouche est décharnée, bien qu'intéressant les meilleures années étaient derrières ce vin. 13
January 30, 2012 - 2nd time I have this and just even more so than the 1st bottle, this one showed a strong moldy note that never totally blew off. Fresh red cherry and strawberry notes with typical leather and garrigue notes. This vintage definitely plays on the finesse. Too bad for that moldy note.
August 4, 2011 - corked. argh.