Friday, June 20, 2014

Gazing Ahead


It’s a wonder to think how good wine aficionados can gaze into the crystal ball and successfully predict how well a wine will develop and age. We all do it, and there are many guidelines one picks up in making a forecast.  Much of it is the history and culture that surrounds certain wine styles, regions and grapes that has been accumulated as common knowledge and consistency.  A full understanding of the growing season helps enormously too.  There’s nothing like plain old experience.

The I-Spy Agent shared a bottle with us.  It was a wine that he predicted would last several decades, so SWMBO and I were privileged that he broached it with us, much earlier than how long it might last.  The 2000 Ch. Gazin Pomerol opened at one and a half decades would not be a waste, as at around 10 years, good clarets can begin to show their true personality.  A great vintage to celebrate the turn of the century and the millennium, the 2000s were deemed suitable for a very long life at their release. 
 
The I-Spy Agent acquired this bottle as one that he believed would stand the test of time.  Still black-hued red, this was compacted and concentrated, but oozed classic claret aromas and flavours.  Firm tobacco, plum and currant notes, as though not long in bottle.  The faintest suggestions of secondary dried leaf, and a touch of earth, and a hint of game.  Fine-grained, but massive fruit and tannin extract, and immense density.  But with the finesse to allow a modicum of accessibility.  Merlot for sure, maybe a Graves St Emilion was my guess.  And I would have said younger than its years.  Totally enjoyable, yet enduring, and understandable, but still with a lot more to emerge.  This will keep another three decades… 

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