1997 - Avignonesi Grandi Annate and Long-Depaquit Vaillons

1997 Avignonesi Vino Nobile di Montepluciano Riserva Grandi Annate

Nice minty, cedar nose. Excellent tannin grip front palate & rear palate, although there might be a little hole mid-palate.

But YIKES! Profoundly bitter late palate. Painful to swallow. I couldn't finish mine, and poured it out. My brother said that he had to "speed swallow" to force it down.

DAY TWO: Blecch. Dead.

Importer of record was "Classica USA, Napa, CA".

1997 Long-Depaquit Vaillons 375ml

Not dead, but dying. No notable aromatics, fruit, or minerality - my brother called it "watery". Certainly none of the oomph that it had back in the day.

In our market, we only saw the 375ml's, but if you have this in 750ml, then you might want to think about drinking up.

**********

Fortunately the evening was salvaged by Toni Bodenstein & Manfred Prüm, in the form of the 1999 Weissenkirchen Chardonnay & the 2001 Graacher Himmelreich Spätlese [both drinking beautifully, of course].

Nathan:
Regarding the '97 Avignonesi Grandi Annate: I too opened a bottle of this, though about a year ago. My experience was almost identical to yours (including relegating the wine to duty as a high-priced drain cleaner) except that the wine tasted of oak as well.

A moral of sorts: Based on a high Parker-point rating, I had purchased my bottle for about $40 shortly after it was released. I stored it well, anticipating a memorable drinking experience. Thus when this wine showed so badly, I learned a valuable lesson about trusting my own tastes in wine versus allowing the preferences of others to dictate my cellar strategy. Ah, the cost of education these days!!
Dave Mo

[Jenise]

"Speed swallow." You've just added a new phrase to our collective vocabulary. We all have to do this occasionally around both wine and food, but I don't believe we've ever had a name for it.

Based on a high Parker-point rating, I had purchased my bottle for about $40 shortly after it was released.

For the historical record, I believe the villain here was James Suckling.

But yeah, this was one of those bottles from back in the day when we used to put blind faith in points [the naive assumption having been that a professional wine critic would actually know what he was doing].

Yikes - I have a bottle of the '99 (not from a critics rating, but liking VNdiM and wondering what 'trading up' would bring). I bought it in Italy (Genoa I think) 2-3 years ago.

I wasn't planning to open it for 2-3 more years, but might just scour around for tasting notes on the '99 to see what others experiences are like.

regards

Ian