1989 The Eyrie Vineyards Chardonnay

Community Tasting Notes (2)

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  1/28/2021 - rcb25 wrote:

  Reconditioned library release from Eyrie. Will the current lineup of Oregon Chards taste anything like this right out of the gate? If so, buy up and hold onto a few bottles if you can, because this is delicious.
  
  Popped and poured straight from the cellar and right off the bat it was singing. Filled with aromas of marzipan, mixed nuts, truffles and honey. On the palate it’s rich, dense and complex with enough acidity to hold it all together. It’s pretty much all tertiary flavours and aromas at this point and I lack the vocabulary to describe it all, but this just had me saying, “wow” at every sniff and sip.

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  9/2/2020 - NoahCap wrote:

  Whoa- what an experience! This was a “Cellar Certified Library Release” bottle- meaning it was stored at the winery for 30 yrs, then topped off and recorked recently; so this wine is almost certainly in better shape than a bottle you’ll find in a shop or a dusty corner of your basement. But if you get such a bottle, you’re in for a wild ride.
  
  This is a fascinating wine with a kaleidoscopic range of smells and tastes, that you may or may not like. It’s very unusual, somewhat oxidative, not for the faint of heart. There are flavors of yeast, stinky cheese, burned bread, deep dark citrus like stewed Christmas oranges, marmalade, beeswax, dried apricots and mangoes, mixed nuts, mushrooms, dusty potpourri, caramel, madeira, even a bit of cocoa powder. Hard to identify this as a Chardonnay, let alone one from Oregon. Clearly a well-aged white of some sort. While the flavor spectrum skews oxidative and mature, the wine is by no means dead. It is lively and dances around the palate. I have to say that this is an incredibly impressive wine, however it is an acquired taste. Everything from the deep orange color, to the smell of cheese, to the taste of caramel will be alien to the casual wine drinker. Not recommended for those inexperienced with old wine. My dinner partner was not a fan and stopped at half a glass. I thought it was great. Not cheap, but a fun special occasion bottle for aficionados.

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