Wine was from me. With Hart, Brandon, QH, Jeff, Charmaine, BSG, Maisy, GY and KJ at Liu Fu Shi Fang Cai private dining.

This came with a lot of expectations. Brandon and I had the 2001 early in 2022, although I don’t rmb much of it. As I had read, Robert Ampeau doesn’t release his wines in scheduled vintages. Rather, the man cellars all his production, and only releases them when he thinks it’s the right time. For context, the most recent 2024 release, was his 2005 vintage. Brandon had sent over a few reviews of the wine and let me tell you, expectations were high sky.

Tearing off the seal: just the light layer of mold on the cork. The cork came out in shockingly good condition for a 22 year old wine (see slide 3). We let this guy aerate in the bottle for 1hr 45mins.

Off the bottle – This was a visibly aged wine. medium body, medium garnet in color with a distinct brown rim.

On the nose. Um. It’s very very complex. There’s a richness/milkiness to the red fruits. There’s a very pleasant and non-funky mushroom quality to the nose, and earth. On the exhale, ROSE. I have not had that distinct rosiness from a wine in a very long time.

On the palate: mid+ acidity, grippy pleasurable tannins that melts away at the end. Long finish.

This wine NEEDS a lot of air. Nose was still tight, but opened up with aggressive aeration in the glass. Woodiness slowly emerged out from the glass to just, complete the wine.

Also, this came as a complete surprise to me: this wine paired SO WELL with the saltiness and wok hei of the Hokkien mee. My god.

Wow. I want more. Also another stark reminder of the pleasures of drinking aged wines.