WineLovers Discussion Group

To go with peanuts, hot dogs and potato salad as requested by the birthday boy for dinner al sofa while watching UCLA get trounced by Florida:

1987 Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon
Sturdy nose of blackberry, plum and cigar box, but less thrilling in the mouth. Very monotone and lacking in depth.

1966 Palmer, Margaux
This is more like it. Lovely spicy nose with licorice, cedar and mincemeat pie notes on juicy boysenberry fruit. But at the end of it's life--the wine started out well but just kind of gradually faded away as we drank it.

Jenise wrote:To go with peanuts, hot dogs and potato salad as requested by the birthday boy for dinner al sofa while watching UCLA get trounced by Florida:

1987 Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon
Sturdy nose of blackberry, plum and cigar box, but less thrilling in the mouth. Very monotone and lacking in depth.

1966 Palmer, Margaux
This is more like it. Lovely spicy nose with licorice, cedar and mincemeat pie notes on juicy boysenberry fruit. But at the end of it's life--the wine started out well but just kind of gradually faded away as we drank it.

Thanks for the notes. I'm sorry, I'm utterly clueless about American wines, but is Mondavi's CS meant to be aged this long and how is the 87 vintage viewed?

Nice to hear about the 66 Palmer. I've been collecting a few cheapish and humble 66s for a soon-to-happen tasting of older Bordeaux. Nothing of this calibre but considering how pleasurable the 59 St-Emilions were (all unknown names!) I have high hopes that this will be fun too. Just one question as you seem to have quite a bit of experience with these older wines: when a wine starts to die, do you notice a scent of rye bread / malt / marmite creeping in to the scent? With my limited experience with these older wines, if that happens then it's time to take bigger sips

Otto

Rye bread? Marmite? Can't say those notes are familiar to me, but I think I get what you mean by marmite--that it's the same note I call 'soy sauce' when I complain that a wine is too old. It's where a pinot might as well be a cabernet which might as well be a zinfandel for all I can tell at that point. It's just a mud of a wine, still wine and not oxidized or anything, but murky colored and devoid of most varietal character.

This one was a bit on the old side for a Mondavi regular, but 87 produced huge wines and we had no reason to think this one would be gone. A Reserve version that I had about a year ago was much better--don't know if that's a source issue or the wine itself. Likely, both.

Re the Palmer, I've only had a few 66's, but pretty much 100% good luck with the ones I've had and with Pichon Baron topping the list. Can't wait to read notes of the tasting you're amassing wines for. When's that going to be?

Jenise wrote:Rye bread? Marmite? Can't say those notes are familiar to me, but I think I get what you mean by marmite--that it's the same note I call 'soy sauce' when I complain that a wine is too old. It's where a pinot might as well be a cabernet which might as well be a zinfandel for all I can tell at that point. It's just a mud of a wine, still wine and not oxidized or anything, but murky colored and devoid of most varietal character.

Re the Palmer, I've only had a few 66's, but pretty much 100% good luck with the ones I've had and with Pichon Baron topping the list. Can't wait to read notes of the tasting you're amassing wines for. When's that going to be?

Thanks for the short palate calibration (if there is really such a thing - my recent post on the DELETED word got me thinking about this often used phrase and I'm not sure I should use it anymore). But soy sauce I can understand.

The tasting will probably be sometime this month, no set date yet, and nothing special in it Just de Pez, Soutard, Certan de May 1966, and two ringers I'm not going to post as I know that one from our tasting group reads these pages...