A wonderful wine. Stewed fruits, spices, very nice balance drinking very well. Enjoyed every sip. And here is the interesting part. I had bought my first Coravin at the end 0f 2015 when I was desperately looking for something that would preserve my wine, so I did not have to drink the entire, or most of the, bottle. As a test I sampled several wines in early 2016 (I did not record the dates) using Coravin and put them away to taste after a year. And they all tasted great, one to two years later. Except I buried this one back in my very small cellar and forgot about it and did not notice it until a few days ago when I was re-organizing. I had poured half in 2016 and today had the other half. Wow.
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Decanted about an hour before drinking. Opened up nicely in the glass. In a great place. A classic, wonderful Montelena. No rush but don’t think it will get any better with more age.
Dinner at Foliage (San Francisco): Pretty nose with dark fruit, black cherries, a bit of spices, leather, cedar, and underwood. Good acidity on the palate with similar flavor profile. Nice finish. A lovely wine that is drinking really well. It's youthful and has a lot of fruit left, yet there's a tertiary character that is starting to emerge.
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Dinner with Herwig (Foliage, SF): Deep ruby, excellent color; blackberry, good complexity, some bell pepper; complex palate but with a bitterness on the midpalate which I don’t recall from last bottles. 92 1 hour later: opening up with air. Really fantastic, closer to my last bottle. 95 Day 2: Still lovely! This has held up nicely, which combined with the airtime it needed yesterday to get going suggests it has more time ahead of it for drinking. Unfortunately my last bottle though.
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4/22/2024 - ShakenNotStirred Likes this wine: 96 Points
A wonderful wine. Stewed fruits, spices, very nice balance drinking very well. Enjoyed every sip. And here is the interesting part. I had bought my first Coravin at the end 0f 2015 when I was desperately looking for something that would preserve my wine, so I did not have to drink the entire, or most of the, bottle. As a test I sampled several wines in early 2016 (I did not record the dates) using Coravin and put them away to taste after a year. And they all tasted great, one to two years later. Except I buried this one back in my very small cellar and forgot about it and did not notice it until a few days ago when I was re-organizing. I had poured half in 2016 and today had the other half. Wow.
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1/24/2024 - Nothung Likes this wine: 94 Points
Decanted about an hour before drinking. Opened up nicely in the glass. In a great place. A classic, wonderful Montelena. No rush but don’t think it will get any better with more age.
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1/10/2024 - glou.sf Likes this wine: 94 Points
Dinner at Foliage (San Francisco): Pretty nose with dark fruit, black cherries, a bit of spices, leather, cedar, and underwood. Good acidity on the palate with similar flavor profile. Nice finish. A lovely wine that is drinking really well. It's youthful and has a lot of fruit left, yet there's a tertiary character that is starting to emerge.
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1/10/2024 - aagrawal wrote: 95 Points
Dinner with Herwig (Foliage, SF): Deep ruby, excellent color; blackberry, good complexity, some bell pepper; complex palate but with a bitterness on the midpalate which I don’t recall from last bottles. 92
1 hour later: opening up with air. Really fantastic, closer to my last bottle. 95
Day 2: Still lovely! This has held up nicely, which combined with the airtime it needed yesterday to get going suggests it has more time ahead of it for drinking. Unfortunately my last bottle though.
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12/25/2023 - Scottlmatthews Likes this wine: 97 Points
Nose of crushed currants and blackberries with minerals in damp soil of lush forest floor, cigar cedar box. Palate is dark cherries, black berries
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