by Steve Kirsch » Wed Nov 29, 2017 6:11 pm
For a Southern Rhone evening with my wine group (three of us, with a fourth nursing an ailing gut). Decanted shortly before drinking. Started off with wisps of mushroom on top of some otherwise So. Rhoney aromas, and good color and good structure. The iffy smells blew off over the next 30 minutes and a lovely wine emerged, and persisted until we left a good three hours later. If you've got 'em, drink 'em. I've moved this bottle around from home to home since the late 80s, and my cellar has got as warm as 68F in the summer months, so clearly big reds like this can survive less than icy cellars. In contrast, a 1998 Beaucastel at the same event was still ascending the maturity curve.
