2003 La Jota Cabernet Sauvignon, Howell Mountain (Napa)
Big wine of deep color and abundant blackberry and black cherry fruit. There's also cedar on the nose and some tobacco on the palate, giving the wine more definition. Some secondary nuances are just emerging; and the wine drinks very well right out of the bottle but probably showed best after about an hour. It's a bit on the rustic side, but a nice buy for CalCab at $37 (recent Costco price), and it's more traditional general personality caused me to think that it drinks rather like a drama queenish New World version of a Gruaud Larose (Bordeaux). So to go with grilled rack of lamb the next evening, I opened our last bottle of:
1993 Gruaud Larose
I picked up three or four bottles of this off-off vintage about five years ago at just $15 a bottle based on Michael Broadbent's collection of notes on the wine over the years. He never loved it, but every bottle he had was a little less objectionable in all the ways that suggested that, follow the curve, it would actually turn into a better than average Bordeaux experience for the price, at least for home consumption. It panned out: all have been good, though this one showed a bit past peak. Garnet color and still a rustic version of GL, but no longer rough, it showed leathery black cherry and plum fruit with tobacco, cedar and bit of spice box. Medium bodied at this point and tannins mostly resolved, it started to fade toward the end of the second glass but what went on before was purdy darned nice.
