With curry-cured steak, calabrian chile potato salad, beets with horseradish, dessicated zucchini with mint, and artichoke focaccia:
2017 Gramercy Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon Columbia Valley
Don's bottle. Classic WA cabernet fruit: blackberry, coffee and some bramble. Has lost the dustiness it showed in 4/21. Smooth tannins, very easy to drink. Didn't detect the kind of structure needed for another 20 years of aging as indicated by the CT community drink by dates. More like over next five years.
2015 The Napa Valley Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon
Mike's bottle. Mike actually indicated a few days earlier an intention to bring "all the wine". I had no idea what he meant until he showed up on my doorstep the day before with this 3.0L bottle. Pulled the cork that morning for a good Andouzing and then decanted first thing next morning during which time it found the good balance between sweet fruit and structure. Big and rich but not overripe on the midpalate, smooth tannins, no secondary development, Napa-esque typicity of black cherry and tobacco. Decadent but not hedonistic. A treat to be one of six to share it. Apparently, you have to be a member of a particular closed wine club in order to purchase this wine. It had a neck tag with the last name of the gentleman who gifted it to my neighbor. I checked to see if there was another bottle like this out there in retail, and yes, one in Carlsbad, CA. Price almost $1200.
2016 Waypoint Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville Ranch
Would you believe we ran out of wine? So I made a trip to the cellar and pulled this, which I've never had before. It was impressively bright and spicy-complex, more so than anything that came before it and unusually so for a Napa cabernet. Wouldn't get a lot of cred from Pointy People but we all loved it.