Here is a prime example of the merits of cellaring a bottle for 18 years...
Dull, so desperately dull, tidious and stuffy, it is almost cooked, even though it has spent the last 18 years in my cold cellar. Not even passable for cooking, just down the drain.
58p (tasted 2020/04)
1998 Cabernet Sauvignon Reseve, Fox Creek
This is more like it! Just like the 1996, tasted seven years ago, it sports an outgoing, deep, spicy nose with notes of just laid asphalt, ripe blackberries, bonfire, graphite and violets. Very fine.
The taste is deep and compact with lovely notes of bluberry pie, fried herbs, sweet violets and bonfire smoke. More Syrah notes than Cabernet ones, but still, a great wine. Mature but still have plenty of life.
92p (tasted 2020/04)
How is this possible ... a bottle of Beaucastel is off?!?!? And 1998 on top of that, that most reliable vintage. (Please note ... irony! :-))
ReplyDeleteBut when it's good it can be really good.