Well, it's amazing how taking a wine out of its context can change it dramatically. Perhaps you've experienced this when you're at a winery (maybe having made one or two stops too many in the day) and upon re-tasting the wine after the long journey home and opening it for friends - it just doesn't live up to the vibrance it had in the tasting room.
The same goes for those of us purchasing wines in the restaurant/retail world. Often, a wine gets purchased or considered at a large event with 50 or more wineries where the palate can become fatigued from tasting 100 or more wines. There have certainly been times when I've purchased a wine for Jar and been surprised to find that it didn't live up to my expectations from when I purchased it.
Such is the case with the afore-blogged-about Stag's Leap S.L.V. 2006...
It's true - I just couldn't keep my hands off for more than a couple days and I absolutely HAD to try it after the amazing showing at the Berling Tasting. With leftover burgers, no less. Not for the pairing as it was clearly not the right wine, being so austere, but merely out of morbid curiousity.
Aromatically, the wine was as I remembered it, although taking on more of the typical eucalyptus tone of Stag's Leap AVA. Decidedly an Old World-styled nose, though. I still love that element of it! What really distracts me about the wine is how much weaker and shorter it seemed to finish. The S.L.V. seems to pack all of its punch right out of the gate where it really pumps out the character with loads of eucalyptus, coffee and florality on the nose. On the palate, it shows cedar and bittersweet cocoa mixed with the red currant and black cherry. And then it kind of just fades quickly. Surprising and disappointing.
So - was it the '06 Lafite that I neglected to put in the top three at the Berlin Tasting that provided the decidedly Old World finish I assumed was from the S.L.V.? Could be... It was preceded by two decidedly Old World wines: Lafite in glass #1 and Sassicaia in glass #2. Guess I'll have to open a Lafite...
Well, I'm still going to put a couple of these S.L.V.'s in the cellar. Again - morbid curiousity. Will it age like a Bordeaux? I doubt it. But that's the joy of being in the wine biz is that you can satisfy these silly curiousities. I can certainly speculate that the Lafite will be blowing the doors off the S.L.V. in ten to fifteen years. Am I right? No more than any of those crazy critics...
Because wine is a surprise! And that's what makes it so wonderful, interesting and exciting. I love the surprises and the disappointments. Because when it's spot-on, it makes it that much more satisfying. I'm in for the ride - BRING IT ON!!!
OKAY!!! I'm not talking about Stag's Leap S.L.V. '06 anymore!!! I hate that winery anyway...
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