WTN: Drain-O

[Jenise]

2007 Mer Soleil Chardonnay Reserve Santa Lucia Highlands
Nobody would be stupid enough to hold onto one of these for 17 years, would they? Well, I did. Not because I loved it and expected great things but because I knew it sucked, so essentially I studiously avoided it for 17 years. Until this weekend when, on a cleaning streak, I finally decided to dispatch it from the cellar once and for all.

But before I poured it down the drain, I tasted it. And it wasn't all that bad! Sure, it was about as far as you can get from the white burgundies I love, but it wasn't oxidized. This deep, golden wine smelled of honeysuckle and jasmine, and tasted exactly like a native American corn casserole I once had in Taos wherein the kernels were cut off the yellowest, late season cobs and baked for hours with butter and cream. Rich, round, toasty.

It would be nectar for the Rombauer crowd. Which isn't me, and I wasn't serving wine that night anyway, so down the drain it did go, but hey. 17 years and still alive!

[David M. Bueker]

Huh. Surprising

I do that every once in awhile - find a wine that I had somehow overlooked in the cellar and I never toss it out without popping and tasting it. You can have some surprisingly good experiences that way.

[Jenise]

Bill, this wasn't just overlooked, it was studiously avoided. It's the poster child for Californication. Fat, hot, severely overoaked, candied. Not a wine meant for aging or people like us!

[David M. Bueker]

I do that every once in awhile - find a wine that I had somehow overlooked in the cellar and I never toss it out without popping and tasting it. You can have some surprisingly good experiences that way.

You should have been with me while I was initially triaging my dad’s cellar. Oh my the horrors.

I turned up a 15-year-old bottle of Saintsbury Carneros pinot noir while doing a cellar inventory. It had evolved into a dead ringer for Nuits-St.-Georges. Since then I've been letting my Saitnsbury Carneros age longer.

-Paul W.

I turned up a 15-year-old bottle of Saintsbury Carneros pinot noir while doing a cellar inventory. It had evolved into a dead ringer for Nuits-St.-Georges. Since then I've been letting my Saitnsbury Carneros age longer.

-Paul W.

Interesting. Also with the structure of NSG? I guess NSG has deep fruit, which Saintsbury had in abundance as well. But it always seemed so round and CA, although I never followed Saintsbury closely enough to have extensive exposure.

Bill, this wasn't just overlooked, it was studiously avoided. It's the poster child for Californication. Fat, hot, severely overoaked, candied. Not a wine meant for aging or people like us!

Cue the Monty Python Australian Wine Tasting sketch: "This is a wine for laying down.... and AVOIDING"