by Jim Grow » Tue Nov 18, 2014 1:57 pm
About three weeks ago I opened my second bottle of a case of 2009 Ch. Bard-Haut bought on futures. My first bottle , consumed several years ago was open and agreeable but seemed to hold a lot back. Since the vintage was a lush one , when I opened the second bottle recently I was shocked at how tannic it was. After a couple sips I re-corked the bottle (without filling the air space) and set it aside. A few days later I repeated the process and again set the bottle aside, seemingly unchanged. A week or so later my wife and her friend reopened the bottle in my absence and came to the same conclusion and recorked it again. Today at lunch I opened the bottle prepared to drain it down the sink. It was very much more open, very dark purple in color with no bricking or oxidation evident. I finished enough (enjoyably) to refill a 375 bottle with little ullage. Is this a case of a wine finally evolving out of a closed state to become mellow/enjoyable/drinkable but still not showing any mature secondary bouquet or flavors? Maybe I have finally learned something about being patient with Bordeaux. This St-Emilion had 14.6% abv.
