WTN: Ten years and counting

Dinner with friends – we tasted two cabernets:

I had meat loaf with mashed potatoes and the wines both worked but . . .

1999 Phelps, Insignia:
This is a solid wine; integrated, smooth and properly balanced – but there is no “there” there – void of character or place and despite a pleasant enough accompaniment with the food, it added nothing to the mix.

1999 Shafer, Hillside Select:
Paradigm shift – this is loaded with character, brighter and more nervous in the mouth, carries the mind and senses to places they didn’t go in its absence and finishes long and vivid. ‘Night and day from the previous bottle.

Best, Jim

"carries the mind and senses to places they didn’t go in its absence"

So rare (for me) when a wine can do this, but such an amazing, thrilling experience. I've heard a lot of great things about Shafer HSS, glad that that wine showed so well and offered so much pleasure.