Okay, it's not exactly the best of wines, nor the worst of wines, but still . . .
I had an hour to kill in the middle of the day as I was working in DC and I walked by a liquor store that had a wine selection. Not a wine shop, mind you, but clearly one of those urban liquor stores who have expanded to offer a few aisles of a wine selection. Mostly their stuff was brightly colored labels with animals on them--nothing I am wont to purchase. But nestled among their wines were some rather older items I can imagine have just been sitting on the shelf, upright, with the store temperature rising and falling with the seasons. The most amusing were some French vin de table which had to be from the early 1980s, judging by the labels (VdT don't allow vintage to be printed on the label, I take it?). Their labels were stained and the wine barely made it up to the shoulder of the bottle. The wine was long since gone, but hey, they were only asking like three bucks for it. As I pretty much knew that was undrinkable, I wasn't tempted, but I did notice some better prospects that were a really cheap gamble. I have not yet had the opportunity to age wines for myself and I am very curious to experience the effects of aging on wine. I searched the shelves and bought the two below, based basically only on the following factors.
1995 Henry de Vézelay Bourgogne $5 - It was not a 1er Cru or anything, I didn't expect that it was built to age. Just a pleasant generic Bourgogne for near-term drinking. Still, I had had an excellent Bourgogne Vézelay from the same producer before and Kermit Lynch has a great reputation, so I picked up a bottle to at least see what both age does and whether it had survived its years in the store's 'care'. And there were two bottles of this, so I could see that one was significantly darker than the other and had a slightly lower fill. I put that bottle back on the shelf and figured, as everything's relative, I had increased my chances that my bottle wasn't totally gone.
1996 Nino Negri Valtellina Sfursat 5 Stelle $10 - I picked this one up based pretty much based on the grape alone. I knew that Nebbiolo was the grape up in those parts and it can take a long long time to come around. Such a hardy grape might offer something still in fighting condition, no? And, plus, I've been meaning to explore Valtellina wines, so if not now, when?
And, the results are in . . .
1995 Henry de Vézelay Bourgogne [Chardonnay] (Bourgogne/Burgundy, France) cork closure, 12.5% - imported to USA by Kermit Lynch, Berkeley, California – appears deep full gold, smell fruit at first, funky cheese, then more sherry-type odors, more depth underneath though, still smell very present pineapple and bit of spice, sherry elements fading and more of fruit comes in, mouthfeel very soft and very very pleasant, excellent feature, taste funky sherry, thick and viscous, salty, fruit center is gone, I’m tasting the edges, for the first half of the bottle those fleeting elements could still be seen and drinking the wine was fun—the very impressive texture made it a pleasure, but once those elements were gone, it was flat and lifeless and down the drain it went, a fun science experiment for $5 for a wine probably never meant to be consumed this late and stored under pretty bad environmental conditions
1996 Nino Negri Valtellina Sfursat 5 Stelle [Chiavennasca/Nebbiolo] (Valtellina, Lombardia, northern Italy) cork closure, 14.5% - imported to USA by Prestige Wine, New York, New York – appears rusted iron blood red, rust halo, lighter see through color, smell minty certs upfront, fresh spearmint, bit of hay, some band-aid or sweaty something, vinyl car seat on warm summer’s day, just hint of alcohol peeking through, taste rich berries, full panoply of spice—but actually more toward wonderful spicy peppers, wonderfully intense, lurking cherries on back end, wow, this wine is rocking and I mean rocking as I quaff the first half of the bottle as I enjoy a pizza with chipotle pesto, mozzarella, chicken sausage, red onions, corn, serrano chilies, tomatoes, and cilantro (from Z pizza—a chain a friend recently introduced me to and with which I have been very impressed), the wine paired the pizza perfectly—exciting . . . fresh . . . spicy . . . wonderful incredible fruit, all is good, then the second half of the bottle the wine shifted (or my palate shifted, who knows) and the wine tasted much more of primary, quite sweet fruit, like jolly rancher sweet, with a very minty unsweet finish, suffice to say this wine is still swimming in rich fruit 12 years in, delicious, excellent superb, for the $10 I paid for a wine from mighty questionable storage conditions I’d say I am nothing less than absolutely delighted with this wine
Overall, a very fun and informative use of $15.