WTN: 2001 Tondonia

Simple Thanksgiving at home with Andrea. Roasted a local chicken, made a dish of marjoram-laced stuffing and sautéed some kale. For whatever reason, we thought a red with some age on it would be nice, so we decanted a López de Heredia 2001 Rioja Reserva, Viña Tondonia at about 1 for a 5pm dinner. What a lovely wine. Mouth-filling and aromatic without being heavy, some dark cherry fruit, spice, and leather. Half in shadow and half in light, like a noir film or a Rembrandt, but with all its nuances perceptible either way. Very nice companion to the chicken.

[David M. Bueker]

Lovely!

I have 1 magnum of this. Now to find an occasion.

[Jenise]

The last 01 I had was a magnum, about a year ago. I wish I'd had your "half in shadow, half in light...like a Rembrandt" in my head at that time, would have made it even more meaningful.

I have an 04 in magnum. Wonder why there are so many magnums around...?

[David M. Bueker]

I have an 04 in magnum. Wonder why there are so many magnums around...?

So do I. Only ever seen them in 2001 and 2004.

Give it lots of decant time. Based on our last glass, I’d say our 750 would have done even better with 6 hours rather than 4!

It occurs to me that in 26 years of cellaring wine I have never owned a magnum… and I’m not sure it makes any sense to start buying them now, unless they’re already well-aged! Plus, I would need more friends.

[David M. Bueker]

I went through a magnum buying spree at one point, and now I struggle to find uses for them.

Yes, I have a row of magnums on the top of the regular racks and I tend to forget about them. I have eight of them including a 1990 Barolo that I'll have to crack within the next year, with my fingers crossed.

[Jenise]

It occurs to me that in 26 years of cellaring wine I have never owned a magnum… and I’m not sure it makes any sense to start buying them now, unless they’re already well-aged! Plus, I would need more friends.

It doesn't. You need like 15 people to justify opening one. Hard to do!

Jean and I threw a party for 30 or so people that we called "Magnum Op(en)Us." We too were faced with the dilemma of what to do with all the magnums that we'd accumulated through various means (mostly presents to me). From memory, there was a magnum of '14 Roilette Tardive, another of the '99 La Mission Haut Brion and another of Ridge Geyserville, vintage now forgotten.

We still have another 4-5 magna sitting on the top of the wine racks, a 2012 Clape Cornas, another of the '14 Roilette Tardive and a '16 Ridge Geyserville. Not sure we have enough friends left in town, certainly not of the wine-drinking sort, to justify opening these up in a similar event.

[Jenise]

Not sure we have enough friends left in town, certainly not of the wine-drinking sort, to justify opening these up in a similar event.

I don't have many, so hard to find the right time. There in fact almost never seems to be a right time. My biggest burden is a '95 Chateau Margaux because I can't bear to waste it on people who would rather drink lusher new world wines. Yet I can't seem to get enough of the other kind of people in a room at the same time.

I don't have many, so hard to find the right time. There in fact almost never seems to be a right time. My biggest burden is a '95 Chateau Margaux because I couldn't bear to waste it on people who don't even know what that is. Yet I can't seem to get enough of the other kind of people in a room at the same time.

One solution is to decant the magnum, putting half immediately into another 750 ml bottle and top it up with a wine preserving gas (usually argon based - you can buy it on Amazon).

The 95 is an excellent wine, still on the way up. But if you want to try the above single bottle decant, I'll chip in with a 1988.....

[Jenise]

Bill, this has occurred to me. So has drinking it all by myself. If I disappear for a few days, you know what happened.