The jammy fruit scents that wafted out of this as I was decanting prepared me for something truly sickening, but fortunately the wine doesn't taste at all like what the aroma prepares you for, and even the smell develops into something more normal within a half hour or so. It turns out the wine is quite backwards with not much in the way of fruit at all, so fiercely structured that it's practically undrinkable without food. And I never would have believed it if I hadn't witnessed it, but sipping it with steak changes the wine completely, making it not just accessible but actually pretty damn good. There's still plenty of tannin but it's much more fine and sophisticated and doesn't overpower the restrained, claret-style fruit. Once the steak is gone, the window into the wine disappears too.
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2/8/2009 - Keith Levenberg wrote: 87 Points
The jammy fruit scents that wafted out of this as I was decanting prepared me for something truly sickening, but fortunately the wine doesn't taste at all like what the aroma prepares you for, and even the smell develops into something more normal within a half hour or so. It turns out the wine is quite backwards with not much in the way of fruit at all, so fiercely structured that it's practically undrinkable without food. And I never would have believed it if I hadn't witnessed it, but sipping it with steak changes the wine completely, making it not just accessible but actually pretty damn good. There's still plenty of tannin but it's much more fine and sophisticated and doesn't overpower the restrained, claret-style fruit. Once the steak is gone, the window into the wine disappears too.
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