No notes taken at the time, as is more my inclination lately for wines consumed at home, just lasting impressions:
79 Brane-Cantenac, Margaux
We absolutely wanted a Bordeaux with dinner, but the main course was a grilled veal chop with morel-asparagus risotto which called for a lighter style. The solution to that problem is a selection from the "Really Old and Possibly A Goner" corner of our cellar. This one filled the bill in every way. Not decanted. Medium red color with orange rim, and big, classic old Bordeaux nose with a touch of violet and rusted iron amid the red fruit, but on the mid-palate almost no fruit, just acidity. I spent the two hours the bottle lasted asking myself whether this wine was over the hill or simply insufficiently awake, and could not find conclusive evidence either way.
2000 Bunchgrass Red Wine, Washington State
We opened this red blend one night to enjoy with friends, thinking it would surely be ready to drink. And it had a very expressive black fruit nose, but on the palate it was all texture and no flavor: extracted, acidic. So I put the cork on the bottle and set it aside for the next day--and promptly forgot about it for about four. So imagine my surprise when I opened it and found it virtually unchanged from before. It was exactly the same wine. Don't know what to make of that, but I donated it to the rhododendrons.
1993 Schlumberger Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve, Dry Creek Valley (Sonoma)
Wine loving friends called and said they were showing up with a wheel of canned cheese (a joke I thought, but not so!), so I pulled this little gem from the cellar and had glasses waiting their arrival. Schlumberger is a winery (Brian Miller, are you listening?) that surprises me for not getting much airplay at all. Now I can understand why the California cult-chasers ignore it--these are very European styled wines--but I don't understand why Californians who appreciate the difference don't tout these wines loud and often. Purple-black color, no visible signs of age. Dusty cab nose, but also a ripe year Bordeaux kind of presence--that is, rich but not sweet fruit, big structure but stately. Fruit, acid, and tannins in harmonious balance, and ready to drink but should hold here for a couple years. Our friends, lifelong Californians until three years ago and whose own cellar is primarily Californian, were quite surprised to have a wine so good from a winery they'd never heard of.
2004 Maryhill Sauvignon Blanc, Columbia Valley, Washington
I don't know what's going on at this winery. In the past I've had a delicious zinfandel from them that was a model of restraint from an often untetherable grape, but contrast that with a goopy, cheesy Viognier. Now, a hideously undermanaged sauvignon blanc. And we're not talking ripe-sweet, there was nothing at all overtly ripe about the wine. Rather there is some grassiness in the nose which suggests they were on the right track at some point, but in the mouth it's cotton candy. Simple, saturated and SWEET. If there were a White Grape Rescue Association, I'd report these guys.
