WTC Wine

Tonight I sit across from a duo of vintage beauty. Opposite in many ways. Not often shared together. But at this table, there are three persons and six glasses.

Pride Mountain 2003 Reserve Cabernet. Vanilla streams in the middle of rich, sweet, nutty tobacco that subside to leave a residual flavor revealing youth; the youth of this extremely powerful wine.

Chateau Grand Puy Lacoste 2003 Pauillac. A nose of fruit flowers and a hint of gruyere gives way to supple, silky notes that bring forth the simple iron plow that first cut through the ancient soil yielding fruit for rustic, truly french oak.

Well that is a clever number. Perfectly ready to drink and no waiting for the decanter on this one. If you ignore this for 15 minutes, you'll miss the honeysuckle notes on the nose, not to mention shades of vanilla and lavender. Breathe in deeply as you drink and enjoy the mild oaky flavor that floats within the viscous union of tart berries and a thunder not typically heard around the word Grenache.

Miner Oracle 2003. Beautiful nose. But stronger on the pallet than it smells. Played along with fishy appetizers without overwhelming, but was perfect for beef carpacio pairing as well.

Matisse 2003. Fair nose. Good flavor. Weak presentation. Beautiful label. Didn't stand up to the price.

Jones Family Vineyard 2003 Cabernet. An end of a saga on this bottle. In celebration of a mid-year bonus some 8 years ago, my wife and I tended to some wonderful vittles at Nora's in Washington, DC - widely considered to be one of the top restaurants in the area. Amidst our exquisite meal served by an MIT pHd who found customer service to be more exciting than moving electrons, we managed to take down some serious wine. A Talbott Chardonnay to start and then a forgotten bottle of Zinfandel. Needless to say the haze was thick as we ordered our third bottle from the now quite friendly sommellier. However, he wasn't able to pull our choice as the last bottle has been recently pulled. Not to be deterred, he pulled a wonderful Cabernet from his private stock and explained that he was good friends with the vinters and that they were producing low quantities of this selection. Unfortunately, the haze got me and I forgot the name of that bottle. No surprise that the end of this story is that I was reunited with that wine at Forbes Mill in Los Gatos, California. No questioning it. This wonderfully rich, smoky number was the very wine that impressed me so and had kept me reading wine lists upside down and sideways (albeit on the east coast) searching for a name to jog an old memory. This one was indeed a happy reunion. I'm headed now to joneswine.com now for a little investigation of personal orders to come.