The summer heat never stops us in our windowless dream wine world from opening fantastic, ripe reds. This week we opened some incredible bottles of Bordeaux that were showing beautifully in their respectful stages of life. The 2000 Leoville Barton was my personal favorite of the Seconds last week as it possessed the most seasoned layers of elegantly balanced earth and exotic spice but still offering its powerful dark fruit, dried licorice and sweet tobacco notes finishing with great length and dust.
We opened two Cos d’Estournel this week, one from 2002 and the other from 2006. The 2002 was amazingly ripe and almost New World like in weight and texture with intensely deep flavors, richly defined layers of deep minerals, sweet leather, tar, dark chocolate and toasted coconut and with juicy depth. On the other hand, the 2006 was showing rewardingly well after an almost 3 hour decant with powerful generous fruit, tobacco, smoke and savory salty meat all with an incredibly silky touch.
A monstrous bottle of 2005 Haut-Brion was also opened. A complete youngin and with insanely intense grip, brooding dark berry fruit throughout and punches to the face of graphite, fresh soil, leather and violets with a final body slam of the whole pantry filled with herbs and spice. I completely appreciated the 10 year old Haut Brion and anticipate the moment when I can revisit this beast with 20 years time in the cellar.
Going away from Bordeaux and into Napa; especially with the 2012’s being released, I feel that each week I have a new favorite 2012 boutique Napa gem in my glass. And this week’s favorite is one that I have pre-declared as my favorite for the entire summer: 2012 Entre Nous! The fruit is absolutely perfect in this one: concentrated yet balanced, juicy red, blue and black berries prance around the palate as other ridiculously delicious layers intertwine in luscious ease. I even get excited when the 2011 Entre Nous is open and about on our Graileys tables. You have to check out Entre Nous. They breathe and bleed out impressive juice in every label.
And the winner of the week is….
