1978 Chateau Ste. Michelle Cabernet Sauvignon Cold Creek Vineyard
Community Tasting Note
Bin707LoversDetroit Likes this wine:
Tuesday, December 26, 2023 - What an impressive showing!
Forty-five years since these were growing, probably forty-three since they were bottled...
It was so old, we thought to call the vineyard before we cracked it, to discuss its history. The gentleman on the other end said he believes this was the first vintage they ever did this Cab.
Well you could've fooled us.
Most people probably don't think Washington State wine could survive from the 70s. This one has crystals on the cork, the tip is midnight black, the entire ride up the cork is wine covered... Naughty talk...
Granted, we were very gentle in removing it, but it came out in one piece. Decanted slowly.
Pretty bricked edges? yes;
Aged funk? all day;
Earth, tobacco and green? it's in there;
Medium bodied but full flavored;
Complex and discussion worthy.
An hour open it became a more cohesive juice. The pours got bigger, no holding back, no concern for flavor, no apprehension wondering- will we empty the glass.?. Whether the winemakers knew it in 78/79, it was built to last.
The backbone has slathered away over time. No acid there to ride it more days in the racks. If you have one or a few, now's likely the time. If you racked it right, please call us when you decant. See ya soon!
You can't manufacture these flavors and scents... Just stunning. Beguiling in that it was so aged, but fresh enough for Steve Martin's Jerk.
This bottle won't make another hour.
We realize we may be missing the best of it by drinking it so quickly, but we've also had other decades-aged vin that collapsed soon after opening, or soon after a brief peak. So, we'll take what this half-centenarian is offering.
Health, wealth, love and peace to you all in '24.
Noroc!
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Comment posted by Tgood:
4/6/2024 8:37:00 AM - Just read and appreciated your impassioned description of the whole drinking experience surrounding what turned out to be and I’ll use your apt terminology a discussion worthy wine. So wonderfully descriptive and translatable to other elders I have had the joy to imbibe - I feel as though I have the Ste Michelle in my imaginary glass now. I have still cellared and have drank some 70’s and 80’s Calcabs and a scarce few Wash staters through the years - some discussion worthy others disappointingly not but I guess that is part of the thrill ride. Great work- great community - made that by wine lovers who contribute such fine emotion-filled observations - so much more valuable than the punditry’s contributions - and it’s the prose not the number that gets real traction. Thanks again for sharing your vinous experience.
Comment posted by Bin707LoversDetroit:
4/6/2024 3:36:00 PM - Tgood, well shucks, thank you so much for those kind words... Amazing to read such praising prose in today's pathetically partisan productions.
Since you, for some reason, claimed to 'get' my rambling thoughts, dare I offer some other notes I drafted, regarding now-empty bottles of old grapes...?...
Our 9/2/17 written memory of 2011 Cramele Recas Uberland told of a trip to Dracu-Land...
12/4/2021- post Thanksgiving- I commented on 2014 Edge Hill Mixed Blacks Field- two bottles, actually!
One more, on April 12, 2018, a cheap grocery store (local high end -not all- Krogers) grape juice, 2015 Scheid Odd Lot Red Blend roused me to the keyboard to ramble out the least vin-like adjectives ever blabbed by a paper cup drinker such as myself.
I am eager to go look at some of your scribe soon!!!
Thanks again.
Noroc!
M~
Comment posted by Tgood:
4/6/2024 6:07:00 PM - Praise well-deserved; I’ll check those wines you noted that live on and truly so in memories as after the juice goes down the gullet and into the toilet all that is left is the memory of the wine and the setting and the grub and the company and…. My reflections are typically alcohol affected barely comprehensible globs of exhaustingly fragmentary brevity on wines I chronically voluntarily leave unscored as the number says so little while the adjectives are the crux as you and other valuable CT contributors so generously share. Keep up the good work. Prost - my German friend would say to Noroc ( another new one for me )
Comment posted by Bin707LoversDetroit:
4/6/2024 6:42:00 PM - Sounds like I need a visit down to Mobile! Before we attack your cellar, maybe you could show me the houses of Sydney Phillips and
E. Bondurant Sledge.
Please do, when sticla & pahar de vin run low in your mână, check out those scribbles of mine...
Živeli
Comment posted by Tgood:
4/6/2024 8:59:00 PM - Yep- The Old Breed - you too must have read that gruesome chilling granular expose’ of real life war experience - should be required reading of all humans - might would diminish the appetite for such - at least help raise the threshold for waging war - even necessary ones.
And oh yep should you as Dylan put it find yourself “stuck inside of Mobile” should your car break down en route to Florida or your flight to New Orleans gets diverted to Mobile or whatnot because just like the ancestors of the better half of our city’s citizenry nobody comes to Dixie’s Anus on their on volition. However abso should you find yourself saddled with the misfortune of being in Dixie’s Anus (Alabama State motto “The Heart of Dixie” thus Mobile the anus) we have a cellar a needin’ a good raidin’.