I had a dream last night that my mother had been mistaking the middle two numbers of her Social Security number for years. A bill was being debated in Congress that would automatically declare a woman incompetent if she forgot her S.S. number. I said to my father that mother was not cognitively impaired, but her disregard for such a responsibility could, in my mind, be treated the same way, even though I wouldn’t want to see mother declared incompetent. My father said I was wrong in my consideration because anybody could forget the number. I said I didn’t expect him to agree with me because on any complex issue I was perfectly used to everybody in the world disagreeing with me. My wife had merged with my mother in the dream so she was not part of the world. Once in a while she agrees with me on a complex issue. (The dream might be relevant because I dreamed it on top of the wine.) And so it goes, and so here is my one-off comment on 2007 Gazin.
My wife Lynn cuts me zero slack. She is the furthest human being on the planet from being an enabler. If I am one percent full of s—t on some idea, not regarding abstract opinions; but, say, I was trying to rationalize my behavior in some instance, she would tell me I was full of s—t. A miss is as good as a mile.
When I declared the 2007 wine magic in the same way that the 1997 was, she agreed. I said, “You are not just saying that, are you?” She said, “When did I ever pimp you about anything? Magic is your favorite word; but, yes, I agree, it is wonderful. How much was this bottle?” ($60)
This morning I asked Lynn how the two of us could have the exact same impression of a wine when I would assume that very few, if any, of 8 billion other people in the world would agree with us. She said it was probably because our criteria for wine imprinted together from our coming out to Bordeaux in 2000, when we opened the first 1997 bottle of a shipment I had bought en primeur and on a bet that we would like them, based on their forward nature. We had drunk whatever up to that point. I asked if we could have had the same impression if it had been a 1995 vintage bottle. She said we will never know.
I know, regardless of whether I am right or wrong. Both the 1997s and the 2007s have that thirteenth essence (a la the movie Perfume) a touch of magic that is somehow related to sex, in addition to all the intellectual properties. It is profoundly sexy. Lynn is wrong: my favorite word, as least for the month, is pantheism. A couple of you might remember that I used the word in my Last Night post – or not. This wine is pantheistic; the 1995 and every other year I know of, besides 1997, isn’t.
For normal people, here’s the note: Profound nose of earth, perfume and exotic elements that it would take a professional nose to describe in any detail. Sweet, deep, smoky, hidden, exotic, silky and profoundly sensual mid palate. Very full mouth-feel and delicious taste. A lingering finish of as much a state of mind from the shock of the first two elements as any specific element I could compare. But gorgeous, the whole thing, including the intensely deep red-purple color which belies the light maceration and fermentation process that I at least thought it would have. Objet-trouvé ready to drink.