Decant Stop Tasting Wine Blog

First off, we probably shouldn’t have openned this wine yet… 2007 vintage, red, France… bad idea.  Anyway, we were mixed on this wine… I like it, Rika doesn’t.  For her I think there isn’t enough fruit.  In a way, I agree… but then, it is complex, dry, and there’s nothing foul about it.  It is a dark garnet color with a violet fringe.  It looks dark, but doesn’t taste that dark.  It has an interesting nose, that you’ll mostly appreciate after a couple of days of decanting (or wait a few years to open it), with flowers, spices, citrus, cedar, and wild berries.  The vegetal component is immediately evident as soon as the wine touches your tounge, but is soon mixed with leather, wood (not really oak), and a variety of subtle fruit flavors, fairly evenly mixed red, blue and black.  There is some acidity, good enough for medium weight meals.  On the finish I like the spices that linger, with cherry, tobacco, and… some kind of wood.  I’m not a fan of oak in my wine, and I’m not saying this wine is oakey, but I can’t escape the taste of some sort of wood.  I get a little flashback from when I was a little boy… and chewed on a piece of wood from time to time.  I guess I liked it.  I guess I still do!  I’m giving it a combined rating between mine and Rika’s… because that’s how we roll.

Rating:  88

Price:  Paid $10 (K&L)  Retails for $17

see photo and read what others have to say about this wine

This is the 2nd vintage of this wine we’ve had, the first being the 2003.  Again, my expectations were high, but this time impressed me even more.  This is for sure the same wine and most of what was found in it last year, are present this time around, but with a bit more fruit and acidity.  It isn’t at all hot, and still has little tannin.  After 18 months in the barrel, you can definitely taste it, a little smokey vanilla.  The black pepper was more subtle this time and licorice was non-existant sadly.  The finish is quite nice and long.  Most people will see this as a better wine, including myself.  Highly enjoyable!  Remember to decant!

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I think this might be the first half-bottle we’ve bought and of course this wine proved why I was always afraid to go that route… we loved the wine and were really sad when the bottle was empty – we wanted more.  Call it [bad] luck I guess, I mean what are the odds?  We kept trying different white wines and wished they were half bottles, but when we finally buy a half bottle, we love it.  Figures. 

Other thing this wine proves is that everyone’s tastes are different.  Stephen Tanzer rated this wine 89 and we rate it 91.  Most of the time we rate lower than the pros, so we were a little surprised to like it better than the ratings suggest.  On to the review.

On the nose lemon bursts from the glass, with a little grass and minerality.  Mouth-feel is very smooth, medium weight, good acidity.  It would probably go with chicken quite well, although we had it with Mahi Mahi, which went very well.  Taste was butter, honey, and grapefruit (but not too sour), and a little lemon grass.  I don’t typically care much for butter in my wine, but the balance of this wine was superb, so all the butter really did was make it really smooth, if not a little creamy.  Buy the 750ml bottle!

Rating:  91

Price:  $22 350ml (K&L)

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Sometimes you read reviews of wines that say you can enjoy it now… but your experience with wine tells you it is probably best to cellar it for at least a few years.  Then you open the wine at the review’s recommendation, and you find you should have cellared it.  This is one of those times.  Oh, when will I learn?  For the most part, if it is a French red, cellar it 3-5 years after release.  It may or may not gain anything, but undoubtedly won’t lose anything.  If you have a case, open a bottle a year upon release… who cares.  We don’t have that kind of budget though, plus, we’d rather drink lots of different wines than more of the same. 

The color is medium ruby, quite pretty.  Aromatically it is pretty nice, after decanting, with some dustiness and a nice red fruit tart (not sure what, but maybe has some blackberry in it as well).  I think what I’m also smelling is actually the tannins, which would be the first time I noticed that in a wine.  Mouth-feel is probably what you’d expect from a Cotes Du Rhone… a little bit lighter than most of what we drink typically, with what I can only describe as perfect acidity – can be drank by itself or will probably go with just about anything.  The fruit is pretty much a nice red fruit mix; strawberry, raspberry, and cranberry – and a nice surprise… orange and lime peel!  Add a little black pepper (joy) and spice, very smooth and balanced oak and tannin, and you’ve got the flavor profile. 

This is a really nice little wine for the money.  Made me want pizza for some reason… a nice gourmet basil and mozzarella, not Pizza Hut anything.  Basically, something simple but delicious.  This isn’t weak like a white, so it doesn’t require weak flavored food.  You just want to be able to appreciate the wine, so don’t blow it out with something too complex or intense. 

My advice is to find this wine, cellar it for a few years, decant it for an hour, and enjoy.  Even if you can’t/don’t want to decant, it is very enjoyable right now.  I do think it has the structure/backbone to continue to blossom for another couple of years at least, so if you can, drink in 2010.

Rating:  90

Price:  $13 (K&L)

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Deep rose in color and smells like a dusty cellar with tobacco and black licorice, and a little smoky.  Mouth-feel is fairly light with slight acidity and very slight ripe tannins.  The taste is well balanced with mostly red and some black fruit and a touch of black pepper (my favorite thing to find in a wine).  The long and pleasant after-taste is basically plum and black pepper, really nice.

I had the wine in my cellar for quite a while waiting for the right moment to open it.  My expectations were high and I was not disappointed.  This is a K&L exclusive, and they’re sold out, so good luck finding it.  I wish I could get my hands on another bottle… I’d love to see what it tastes like in another 5 years!

Rating:  91

Price:  $20

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I bought this wine in the hopes of finding an every day wine for 10 bucks that was readily available, and that I could count on – as from what I read this wine is pretty consistent with every vintage.  It isn’t bad, but it didn’t make me want to keep buying bottles of it either.  Mostly, it has the simplicity of most mass produced wines, the fruitiness of the California versions, but without the oak. 

It is a pretty medium to medium-light ruby red with a slight hint of violet for color and has a fairly nice aroma with cherry and raspberry being dominant with a floral aspect and tiny bits of veggies.  Mouth-feel was fairly light, but smooth and somewhat acidic, and just a hint of soft tannins.  Taste was similar to the nose, but not as good really.  Again, red fruit mix – the usual suspects, with a very slight hint of black pepper.  The after taste was all the vegetal aspect of the nose fleshed out on your palate, along with a mineral residue not a lot unlike the after taste you get when you eat something salty. 

This is a decent meal wine actually, and it would probably work decently to cook with, but I wouldn’t recommend drinking it on its own.  There are better wines for the price for that purpose.

Rating:  87

Price:  $10

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BevMo’s Wilfred Wong rated this wine 90 points, and I figured at $10, it sounded like a bargain.  I bought it before our experience with bad bottles from BevMo and originally had fairly high hopes for this wine.  But since then my expectations have dropped considerably.  When I first decanted this wine and gave it a whiff I thought it might be spoiled… but I think that was paranoia.  

Color was medium ruby with touches of purple.  Aroma is alcoholic cherry and cassis, pretty mellow.  Flavors of blueberry, plum, and cherry, along with ripe tannins.  Medium acidity and decent tannin structure on the mouth-feel.  Finish is plum, lemon peel, and slight tannins.

Overall the wine was enjoyable, and didn’t change much from one night to the next.  Sometimes wines reach a peak (tastes best) 2-3 hours after opening, and then start to die out… losing flavor and becoming overly simplified and unenjoyable.  This is not one of those wines.  We drank half last night, and the other half tonight and taste change was unnoticeable.  This stability is something the better wines we’ve tried had, and something I appreciate.  Of course, some wines seem to just get better the longer it is open, but when that happens we just keep drinking and suddenly, the bottle is empty!    I think this wine would be likable to a wide audience, but I’m not sure how available it is anymore.  BevMo is sold out online.

Rating:  88  (I can see where some would rate higher, but it isn’t our preference of wine)

Price:  $11 (Beverages and More)

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Beautiful garnet color made me first think that this was going to be a great wine.  Then the super balanced and beautiful aroma of smoked oak, dark fruit, cark chocolate, cigar box, strawberry, and vanilla had me convinced.  Unfortunately the flavors didn’t follow suit.  We found it a bit on the light and simple side.  It tasted of smoke, plum, rose petals, strawberry, and a little cinnamon.  Nice, but not $50 nice.  Mouth-feel was lightly acidic and mild on the palate with mild, ripe tannins.  The finish, which wasn’t very strong or long at all, was cedar, cherry, light tannins, and tiny bit of black pepper.  Overall a pretty nice wine… certainly pretty to look at and smell.  But at 50 bucks, I’m not going to recommend it.

Rating:  90

Price:  $50

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This is the bastard step-child of the great Lafite-Rothschild Pauillac 2005… be aware of the difference.  The words Reserve Speciale don’t sound like they’d mean “this isn’t the wine you’re looking for”, but basically it does.  The noble father is valued at about $735 for a 750ml bottle, and hasn’t even been released yet.  All that said, this IS an interesting, and even beautiful wine.

Color is medium, ruby red.

Aroma is at first big time oak, with spinach, bell pepper, spice box, floral, fresh cut grass, hazelnut, almond.  Later, after a few hours, it becomes mostly floral.

Tastes of oak, black grapes, plum, and red raspberry, with a tiny hint of a floral flavor, which eventually becomes the dominant flavor after a few ours of decanting.  I know, weird.  Really good with dark chocolate though.

The aftertaste is pretty cool – dark chocolate, black pepper, and flowers.  Never thought I’d get that combo in a wine.

This wine is really complex initially, and fading to some kind of flowery fruit (mostly flowers) after a few hours.  If it were a little lighter in color I’d say it was the ultimate romantic wine.  But again, at the price, you might be able to do better… on the other hand, it is very unique, and worth a try.  I would love to see what this taste like in 2010, I bet it will totally rock!

Rating:  89

Price:  $30

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This is a beautiful wine to behold, and smell.  Of the four 05 Bordeaux we tried, this one was the most consistent from start to finish. 

Color was medium red – really red.  Beautiful by candle light. 

The smell of strawberries jumped out of the glass as I poured it, really nice.  Also smelled of cherries, ripe fig, honey, oak, and vanilla.

Tastes of plum, ripe fig, strawberry, and cherry… almost like a not so heavy desert wine.  Seemed kind of light though.

The finish was plum and spice, but not much there.  This was probably the weak point of the wine.

Given the aroma and bright red color under candle light, along with a fresh fruit (not fakey though) taste, I’d say this was a really good romantic wine.  Other than that, even though this sounds like a shining review, it didn’t totally impress.  I’m not really sure how much good cellaring will do for this wine either.  All in all, not a bad experience, but for the price, I think you could do better.

Rating:  88

Price:  $17

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