Abe’s Naucratis with some age was something we first tasted at Robert Dentice’s meat-packing district shindig in 2010. I think then it was the 2005, cloudy bastard with precipitate galore. Inspired I put a 2007 Naucratis away for the next 7 years to see what a decade would do. I was hoping to uncork this with other Scholium enthusiasts but it ended up just Mel & me, with a simple summer dinner of carrot soup and baked kale.
I’m glad we ate simply because this wine was worthy of time and we gave it four hours in big burg bowls. White peaches and other stone fruits were thru the nose and palate with cracking acidity still; very youthful and I imagine large formats could go another decade if well cared for. The fruit was still sweet but restrained and it took hours for the wine to really show some aged characteristics. Even then these were subtle background notes; this wine didn’t get crazy sophisticated like aged Littorai Chardonnay can get, and it’s not an acid test like Arnot-Roberts can provide. Maybe Verdelho just doesn’t have that Chardonnay proclivity but it sure was a lovely wine, if still a wee bit cloudy.