Interesting wine lesson contained herein! (NW) of this blog and I had this wine back in March of 08 and wrote our reviews accordingly. They were quite similar (as they should be...) But here is my review of the same wine opened 16 months later than the above wine.
On opening--
Hue is a light pink cherry
Bouquet--ample bright cherry, wood, plum aromas with light spices and pepper.
Palate--White pepper, minerals, chunky tannins.
After breathing it 1.5 hours there's a big cherry nose with some cocoa
Palate--tart, lively, acidic base with cocoa, and cherries. I wrote--"Let evolve." Then added: holding strong; will keep another 3-5 years, maybe longer.
Now read my review of the same wine from March of 08.
"The hue is a light medium red with slight bricking (amber notes) at the rim. This wine has sweet aromas of fruity tobacco with sheets of nuanced fruit and a periodic strip of sweet fresh strawberry jam. Wonderful and absolutely peak! It is silky on the palate--almost thick--with strawberry jam flavors that flash and fade back and forth with light pepper notes. After a moment or two, cinnamon flashes appear and disappear with cinnamon spice cake yielding to a late anise layer. Phew! This is a lot of wine for the price. ($22) What a treat and a value! Raise a glass of plenty of these Rhones!"
The wine I reviewed above is a "different" wine than one from March of 08. How can it be?
Either the wine we reviewed 16 months ago experienced some premature oxidation occur thus a premature "maturity" OR the wine I had last night has slipped into what is called the "dumb phase" that some better quality wines lapse into before emerging ready to drink again. But in view of the mature bricking around the rim of the glass of the one we had over a year ago, my hunch is that the wine I reviewed above is at the proper level of aging meaning it really needs more time. I do know the wine I had a few nights ago was vastly different from the one (NW) and I raved about previously!
Either way--raise a glass!
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