Yes, you read that vintage correctly. Today we are tasting a 16 year old wine. (Well, I am. Alone. None of my guest tasters are around. Sigh. Mope.)
To be honest, I hadn’t even noticed the vintage until it came time to do the review. I had popped into Cambridge Wine Merchants not too long ago, and asked for a recommendation. It’s a good thing to do, generally. Especially when you are familiar with a good part of the stock, it can help to ask someone else to get out of potential ruts. Or just to be annoying. But to continue, this was recommended to me because it was funky, and underappreciated.
In the glass
Light side of dark. WSET would call it medium+. Think 4 out of 5, 5 being the darkest. Brick. It looks old. Fades towards the rim. Despite its age, has nice legs.
Fun fact – legs when describing a wine can also be called tears. So, this wine has prominent tears. Probably because I’m forced to drink it alone.
The nose
I smell stuff. Quite easily. So this would probably be prominent to many others. What I smell? Now that’s a different story.
Funk. Compote, a descriptor I haven’t used in a while. Plums. Stewed fruits.
The palate
Medium body, a bit sour initially. In a sour cherry sort of way. Smooth, well-integrated tannins, but they do let you know they are there. It’s actually a bit lighter on the palate than I was expecting, based on appearances. (Yeah, yeah, appearances can be deceiving, I know.) Raspberries. I get a hint of cherry throat lozenges, but not overly confected ones. No real evidence of compote on the palate, either.
I’m not really getting a lot of tertiary flavours, which you might expect. (Tertiary flavours are those from aging.)
It does change as you let it sit, becoming more cherry-like, and a bit fruitier. So letting it breathe will help a bit.
Rating
Yummy-Plus, with a Pretty on visuals. It’s a nice wine. I guess I was just hoping for a bit more from a 16 year old wine. Having said that, it’s still quite a nice wine.
Perhaps if I had opened the bottle and decanted it, I’d give it a better rating. I did Coravin it, and let the glass sit for some time. I didn’t feel like opening a whole bottle of 14% wine when it is just me. Can be drunk on its own, as I am currently, but would also go well with food.
Sustainability
Organic, wild ferment, no filtration or fining, minimum sulphites added at bottling.
The technical info
15.0% ABV; Syrah, Carignan, Cinsault, Grenache; £29.99 from Cambridge Wine Merchants.