Barolo at RPM Steak (RPM Steak - Chicago, IL): A wow wine. Massive aromas with a broad bouquet of tar and dried roses that are intermixed with cherries. Nose goes on for days. The palate matches the aromatic fireworks with perfectly mature, balanced and complex fruit. Long, long finish. An epically good wine.
Gaja Sori Tilden White Truffle Dinner (Ai Fiori): Beautiful nose that has cool red berry fruit and only mild rusticity and earth influence showing. Whereas the ‘85 in the next glass is rustic and quite dusty, this is lush relatively. Plate here has great juice to the fruit. Lush but also with good development and secondary flavors.
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Gary's Intro Retro -- Italia!: Served double blind. Aromatically this is a bit subdued with non-delineated black cherry. On the palate this is big, bold and structured. Black fruit is sweet and has lots of licorice. Balanced with good freshness. Just never really opened up. My #4, group's #4.
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Chicago Wine Flock...Gary Goes Italian (Chez Weber - Chicago IL): Tasted double blind in what turned out to be a 1982 Barbaresco flight. Clearly ripe with interested material, but this came across as an imperfect bottle and possibly slightly stewed. Much less exciting vs other great bottles I had had in the past.
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Eleventh Annual White Truffle Dinner (Chez Weber - Chicago IL): Open for several hours before serving. Ripe and mature red cherry with lots of spice that kept unfolding in different ways start to finish. Not as fresh as another bottle from last year, but still holding nicely.
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Gaja Charity Dinner & Tasting for HealthServe (Taberna, Bukit Merah): In a magnum, this was lovely. The nose was just a bit tight at first, taking a bit of time to come around. When it did, little puffs of smoke and earth and a little meatiness made way for nuances of dark cherries, dried flowers and herbs. The palate was much the same. It was almost a bit tight and seemingly rustic at first, quite uncharacteristic for a Gaja I thought, with fine but firm tannins and earthy, herby, meaty nuances at the fore. With a bit of time and air though, the wine really opened up and softened, showing a lovely clarity and grace in burgeoning flavours of dark cherries and dried berries all wrapped in beautifully integrated acidity. It was quite surprising how the wine went from tight to a wonderfully clean, clear, almost precise expression in half an hour, with an underlying sweetness in its fruit just starting to bubble to the surface. This felt so youthful and effortless. Lovely finish too, with the dark fruit met with a sprinkle of spice and earth and a little hint of meat, all still puckered with a touch of grippy tannins. A lovely wine and, in a magnum at least, this could go on for decades on end.
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Som vanligt ett väldig trevligt besök hos Gaja. Denna gång med hela familjen. Väldigt gästvänligt och fin uppställning med viner.
Verkligen kul att få prova Sori Tildin 1982 då jag relativt nyligen drack Sori San Lorenzo 1982. Ljus söt mogen frukt, massor av svamp och tryffel, lakrits, torkade rosor och lite doft av kokt kål i bakgrunden som gjorde att man upplevde det lite "over the hill". Fortfarande bra grepp i tanninerna, fin fräsch syra, känns väldigt torrt och lite avsaknad av frukt i smaken men ändå balanserat. Överlag så var samma årgång av Sori San Lorenzo avsevärt mycket bättre, men med denna ålder så får man räkna med en hel del flaskvariation när det gäller Piemonte. Så att nästa flaska kan mycket väl vara magisk.
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Carrots & Chicken (Vernon, CT): Very nice initially, with loads of sour cherry and dried flowers, but faded fairly quickly after a couple of hours. My 4/7
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A very savoury aroma of earth, dried flowers, mature red fruit and black tea that's echoed on the palate. It feels a touch austere though with not much fruit on the palate, and some grainy tannin still lingering on the back end. Very nice, though overshadowed at the table by the Lynch Bages and the Monte Bello.
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Jelle´s wine of the night, but I was too busy attending to the BBQ to actually drink much of this. Lean and crunchy and needing some big red meat. Seemed to lack the complexity of the 89 and really I should have opened this up once all the meat was on the table, rather than before.
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With a perfume dominated by red fruit, spice and truffle, this medium bodied wine was tannic, tart and drying. Others in the group liked it a lot more than I did. I did not like the style of the wine. It lacked fruit and generosity.
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Fairly light carmine color. Beautiful and complex bouquet with a little barnyard, chocolate and spices. In the mouth beautiful acidity, soft tannin and still some fruits. A beauty overall, but the bouquet is the best part. Completely ready now.
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Dreamtasting #2 (Restaurant de Watermolen, Kasterlee): (*) Had high expectations on this wine, but it did not live up to those. Its bouquet was gorgeously complex, but the palate lagged behind. Enticing wafts of rust, rose petals, asphalt, potpourri and black pudding. Still firm and tannic in structure. Slighty lean and elegant, but also austere and sinewy on the palate. Faded fruit. Decline has started, past its prime. 17/20
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A Great weekend in Athens; 11/27/2010-11/28/2020: At Sale & Pepe in Athens. White truffles need their match and for sure this is one. Still a vbrant wine, very powerfull and youthfull. But this is not the great wine we hoped for at the moment. Did not open up at all while we were at the restaurant and would suggest a good 2 hour decant.
This was the second bottle we tried as the first one was flawed. some issues with corks in the batch here.
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(at Cinghiale – Baltimore) Medium garnet. Youthful looking compared to wines in past flight. Strange nose: sour cherry and a real funk (menthol and wet leaves). Very rich on the palate – still youthful. A very strange showing --- no rating.
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A beautiful wine. Soft and velvety in the mouth, but with plenty of vigor and forward fruit. The wine possesses a certain richness with deep notes of dark cherry but at the same time displays the graceful maturity of a 24 year old wine.
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Its amazing how young and unevolved the 1980's Gaja's still are (queue Rico - "of course its still young Brad, you moron, its only 24 years old"). This is still just a purple bomb, with essentially no nuance, and really should not be opened for years.
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TWITS first official tasting (John G's): Dark red, transparent wine. Nose of cedar and minerals. Nice, acidic, fruity wine with raspberries, rosepetals, cedar, and more cedar. Very nice.
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4/27/2021 - Nanda wrote: 96 Points
Barolo at RPM Steak (RPM Steak - Chicago, IL): A wow wine. Massive aromas with a broad bouquet of tar and dried roses that are intermixed with cherries. Nose goes on for days. The palate matches the aromatic fireworks with perfectly mature, balanced and complex fruit. Long, long finish. An epically good wine.
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4/27/2021 - bugdoced Likes this wine: 95 Points
WOTN at rmk steak dinner
singing fruit , integrated tannins
mysterious flavors that go on forever
amazing
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10/19/2018 - kenv wrote: flawed
FWG Lunch with Gaia Gaja (Ai Fiori Restaurant in the Langham Place Hotel, NYC): [Double-decanted at 10am.] Stemmy, austere. Not unappealing, but it doesn't seem right for a 1982.
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11/9/2017 - The Vines That Bind wrote: 92 Points
Gaja Sori Tilden White Truffle Dinner (Ai Fiori): Beautiful nose that has cool red berry fruit and only mild rusticity and earth influence showing. Whereas the ‘85 in the next glass is rustic and quite dusty, this is lush relatively. Plate here has great juice to the fruit. Lush but also with good development and secondary flavors.
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11/3/2017 - Nanda wrote: 92 Points
Gary's Intro Retro -- Italia!: Served double blind. Aromatically this is a bit subdued with non-delineated black cherry. On the palate this is big, bold and structured. Black fruit is sweet and has lots of licorice. Balanced with good freshness. Just never really opened up. My #4, group's #4.
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11/3/2017 - Burgundy Al wrote:
Chicago Wine Flock...Gary Goes Italian (Chez Weber - Chicago IL): Tasted double blind in what turned out to be a 1982 Barbaresco flight. Clearly ripe with interested material, but this came across as an imperfect bottle and possibly slightly stewed. Much less exciting vs other great bottles I had had in the past.
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12/5/2015 - Burgundy Al wrote: 93 Points
Eleventh Annual White Truffle Dinner (Chez Weber - Chicago IL): Open for several hours before serving. Ripe and mature red cherry with lots of spice that kept unfolding in different ways start to finish. Not as fresh as another bottle from last year, but still holding nicely.
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10/4/2015 - Paul S wrote: 94 Points
Gaja Charity Dinner & Tasting for HealthServe (Taberna, Bukit Merah): In a magnum, this was lovely. The nose was just a bit tight at first, taking a bit of time to come around. When it did, little puffs of smoke and earth and a little meatiness made way for nuances of dark cherries, dried flowers and herbs. The palate was much the same. It was almost a bit tight and seemingly rustic at first, quite uncharacteristic for a Gaja I thought, with fine but firm tannins and earthy, herby, meaty nuances at the fore. With a bit of time and air though, the wine really opened up and softened, showing a lovely clarity and grace in burgeoning flavours of dark cherries and dried berries all wrapped in beautifully integrated acidity. It was quite surprising how the wine went from tight to a wonderfully clean, clear, almost precise expression in half an hour, with an underlying sweetness in its fruit just starting to bubble to the surface. This felt so youthful and effortless. Lovely finish too, with the dark fruit met with a sprinkle of spice and earth and a little hint of meat, all still puckered with a touch of grippy tannins. A lovely wine and, in a magnum at least, this could go on for decades on end.
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7/10/2015 - FamilyLarsson wrote: 93 Points
Som vanligt ett väldig trevligt besök hos Gaja. Denna gång med hela familjen. Väldigt gästvänligt och fin uppställning med viner.
Verkligen kul att få prova Sori Tildin 1982 då jag relativt nyligen drack Sori San Lorenzo 1982.
Ljus söt mogen frukt, massor av svamp och tryffel, lakrits, torkade rosor och lite doft av kokt kål i bakgrunden som gjorde att man upplevde det lite "over the hill". Fortfarande bra grepp i tanninerna, fin fräsch syra, känns väldigt torrt och lite avsaknad av frukt i smaken men ändå balanserat.
Överlag så var samma årgång av Sori San Lorenzo avsevärt mycket bättre, men med denna ålder så får man räkna med en hel del flaskvariation när det gäller Piemonte. Så att nästa flaska kan mycket väl vara magisk.
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9/6/2014 - johnh1001 wrote: 93 Points
Sleek and soft red fruit, spice and dried roses. Touch of mushroom. Love the clean and precise flavors on the palate.
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4/2/2014 - Burgundy Al wrote: 94 Points
Wine with the NEXT Chicago Steak Dinner (NEXT Restaurant - Chicago IL): Popped and poured. This was engaging from the first pour, with charming red fruit, licorice, dried roses. Kept getting increasingly interesting and powerful with more time in glass.
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6/24/2013 - indiscriminate palate wrote: 91 Points
Carrots & Chicken (Vernon, CT): Very nice initially, with loads of sour cherry and dried flowers, but faded fairly quickly after a couple of hours. My 4/7
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6/24/2013 - salil wrote: 90 Points
A very savoury aroma of earth, dried flowers, mature red fruit and black tea that's echoed on the palate. It feels a touch austere though with not much fruit on the palate, and some grainy tannin still lingering on the back end. Very nice, though overshadowed at the table by the Lynch Bages and the Monte Bello.
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1/1/2012 - rdfech01 wrote: flawed
New Years Eve. Corked. Alas. But now that was last year. Backup 1998 Sperss saved the day.
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12/25/2011 - Asani wrote:
Dry and fruity. Better with hearty food than by itself.
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12/12/2011 - mychurch wrote: 90 Points
Jelle´s wine of the night, but I was too busy attending to the BBQ to actually drink much of this. Lean and crunchy and needing some big red meat. Seemed to lack the complexity of the 89 and really I should have opened this up once all the meat was on the table, rather than before.
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11/26/2011 - Jeff Leve wrote: 89 Points
With a perfume dominated by red fruit, spice and truffle, this medium bodied wine was tannic, tart and drying. Others in the group liked it a lot more than I did. I did not like the style of the wine. It lacked fruit and generosity.
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11/5/2011 - rjonwine@gmail.com wrote: 96 Points
Turkish Feast with Italian Wines (Chez Gence and Elif, Santa Rosa, California): Bricked very dark red violet color; caramel, light chocolate, dried cherry nose; tasty, complex, youthful, dried cherry, tar palate with very firm, sweet tannins; will go 20-30 years; long finish
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9/21/2011 - Rupert wrote: 86 Points
Mixed Barolo and Barbaresco 1958-1990 (River Café, Hammersmith, London): Pongy oxidised nose, better on the palate, gamey and hot, charmless
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6/3/2011 - Rupert wrote: 85 Points
8th Annual Blind Challenge (The Square, Mayfair, London): Tannic and charmless, so assumed it was barolo or barbaresco - this wasn't much fun
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3/12/2011 - Zweder wrote: 92 Points
Fairly light carmine color. Beautiful and complex bouquet with a little barnyard, chocolate and spices. In the mouth beautiful acidity, soft tannin and still some fruits. A beauty overall, but the bouquet is the best part. Completely ready now.
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3/12/2011 - jkoenen wrote: 89 Points
Dreamtasting #2 (Restaurant de Watermolen, Kasterlee): (*) Had high expectations on this wine, but it did not live up to those. Its bouquet was gorgeously complex, but the palate lagged behind. Enticing wafts of rust, rose petals, asphalt, potpourri and black pudding. Still firm and tannic in structure. Slighty lean and elegant, but also austere and sinewy on the palate. Faded fruit. Decline has started, past its prime. 17/20
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11/27/2010 - Papies wrote: 92 Points
A Great weekend in Athens; 11/27/2010-11/28/2020: At Sale & Pepe in Athens. White truffles need their match and for sure this is one. Still a vbrant wine, very powerfull and youthfull. But this is not the great wine we hoped for at the moment. Did not open up at all while we were at the restaurant and would suggest a good 2 hour decant.
This was the second bottle we tried as the first one was flawed. some issues with corks in the batch here.
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6/10/2009 - dbkitc wrote:
(at Cinghiale – Baltimore) Medium garnet. Youthful looking compared to wines in past flight. Strange nose: sour cherry and a real funk (menthol and wet leaves). Very rich on the palate – still youthful. A very strange showing --- no rating.
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12/29/2006 - D. Fulton wrote: 95 Points
A beautiful wine. Soft and velvety in the mouth, but with plenty of vigor and forward fruit. The wine possesses a certain richness with deep notes of dark cherry but at the same time displays the graceful maturity of a 24 year old wine.
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8/1/2006 - BradE wrote:
Its amazing how young and unevolved the 1980's Gaja's still are (queue Rico - "of course its still young Brad, you moron, its only 24 years old"). This is still just a purple bomb, with essentially no nuance, and really should not be opened for years.
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5/16/2006 - trankin wrote: 92 Points
TWITS first official tasting (John G's): Dark red, transparent wine. Nose of cedar and minerals. Nice, acidic, fruity wine with raspberries, rosepetals, cedar, and more cedar. Very nice.
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