With Hart, Sean, Tabs, Ben and SM at my Christmas dinner.

Grabbed this for a couple reasons: 1) I’ve been trying to source for reasonable birth year wines for Hart; 2) we’ve always liked this wine, since our date at Le Bon Funk. As it happened, I had recently met a Bordeaux native who was raving about how this is a hidden gem, AND I’ve been seeing this pop up in outrageous blind tasting and beating some crazy second growths.

We’ve tried a ton of vintages from this winemaker. The last was the 2009 which was phenomenal with great balance of dark red fruits and wood. This was not it.

In the glass: this wine clearly showed its age – dark garnet with a distinctly tawny rim

1 hour into the decant: this was just entirely cedar wood, and some mushroomy funk with no fruits. Tbh I was super disappointed esp after the 2009 (granted this was a full 14 years older). On the palate, mid- body, with pure wood on the exhale. The wine held on to its mid+ acidity and was impressive for the age.

That said, the wine did undergo very dramatic transformation over 3 hours.

Thankfully at the 2 – 3 hours mark, the fruits started emerging slowly and shyly. The sharp cedar wood nose started to round off to become more, just like standard oak wood. There was this small window where there was this complex blend of aged fruit, balanced with wood and mushroom.

At the 3 hours mark, there was this abrupt transition, and the wine smelled exactly like a cigar. Quite remarkable.

Not my fave vintage, requires a lot a lot of air, and has a a complex window.