By: AJ McClellan
What makes a true Graileys night? Well, there needs to be wine, good times, and most of all good friends to share the bottles with… Last night was a Graileys night! We had a plethora of wines that were popped around the table. One of the cool comparisons was the 2001 Pichon Lalande vs the 2003 Cos d’Estournel. The Pichon showed better out of the bottle with bright fruit a light green note on the back end (after much deliberation we called it celery root) and subtle earthy notes. The Cos was bigger and a little closed down out of the bottle but as time went on the wine blew up in the glass! Dark berries with Bordeaux graphite and fresh earth were exploding from the wine. Simon nailed this one blind calling it either 05 or 03 Cos!
Another cool wine was the 2002 La Pousse d’Or Corton Bressandes GC. Corton Rouge can be such a great time but I find that more times than not it is disappointing. This bottle was perfect! As a member put it “dirty toenail clippings” the wine had plenty of funk but it is the kind of funk that you find in great jazz… The fruit was light and crisp backed by searing acidity and a rocky minerality held the wine in excellent balance.
All of these wines however were just an opening act for the two bottles of Torbreck that you know who opened! The 2010 Torbreck Les Amis and Magnum of 2006 Torbreck Laird were simply stunning. We have been fortunate enough to have the Laird in here a few times, one of the rarest bottles to come out of Australia, but to have it in magnum was a true treat. The mouth coating tannins were soft and supple with layers of blackberry, plum, tobacco, and leather. It was hard to tear myself away from the glass but once I did I got into the Les Amis. A 100% Grenache, the Les Amis was a BEAST! Reminding me of a great bottle of SQN this wine was so floral I thought I smelled a bed of roses with lilies an violets sprinkled in… The fruit was softer then the Laird but still very pronounced. All in all these two bottles will be remembers for quite some time for the Graileys cru…
Other bottles of the night included 2006 Draycott, 2010 Chapter 24 Pinot Noir, 2006 Quill Diamond Creek Cabernet, 2007 Arnaud Ente Meursault, 2010 Jones Cabernet, 2011 Fritz Haag, 2002 Leitz, and 1989 Leoville Barton.