Unlike Gouges, Swan Trenton tastes pretty good thoughout its life so once the baby fat melts off so it is fun to track its evolution. It doesn’t seem to go through a closed period the way Gouges or Lafarge does. And I guess “mature” is subjective. But still I understand your point. I wouldn’t want a cellar full of ultra-vin-de-gardes but I dont mind having a few special wines.
FWIW, I have a feeling some of the higher end 05 red burgs are going to be 40+ year wines. Most will likely get drunk before maturity though.
I have a 1992 Joseph Swan Pinot Noir Hopkins Vineyard that I picked up from K&L some time ago. Any insight into that bottling? There don’t appear to be any other vintages of it (I remember having to enter it as an entirely new wine into CellarTracker). I should probably drink it soon, but I’ve thought about trying to get together a Swan tasting with some locals to put it into.
I was another lucky participant and will echo what Berry said about Steve and Lisa’s extraordinary hospitality. While my tasting notes and preferences are similar to Eric’s – with one or two exceptions – the big “wow” for me was how well these wines have aged: The two best examples of this were the 1978 and the 1974:
The 1978 was simply exquisite. I belong to the school of thought that says that Pinot Noir should be elegant, feminine, delicate and complex and this wine was all of those things. Both the 1993 and the 2002 had the same characteristics and were almost as compelling.
The 1974 is a 37 year old (!) California Pinot Noir that tastes like it’s in the prime of its life. Served blind I would have guessed it was from the early-mid 90’s. While it may not be quite as ageless as Joe Swan’s 1970 Gamay – the true Dorian Gray of wine – it’s damn close.
1969 - Joseph Swan ripped out his estate field blend vineyard and planted Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. The property was in the Vine Hill region of the Russian River Valley, now known as Laguna Ridges. At least some of the budwood was from Mount Eden.
Well Lew, I think you need to collect some Leroy GC bottlings, as many of those taste great young(er) and can age for decades. All depends on the style of wine. Some are not easy to drink young, and may take decades to deliver pleasurable levels for your palate…to which I agree, I wouldn’t want to have those either.
But on the other hand, you have some wines that are ready, drink very well early, that say you might buy too much of, that are past their peak drinking windows in a decade or less. Makes you either forced to drink all of them up faster than you may want, or you forget to drink them fast enough and end up with a wine on the down hill.
Happened to me/my parents with the Domaine Trevallon wines. Need some time in the youth, but alright to drink young, hit a peak around a decade, but then because of lack of ‘structure’ (ie acidity, fairly low acidity), they lose fruit and you’re left with mostly milder tertiary herbs de Provence in the bottle, not so interesting, imho.
Go to have wines that drink well young(er), and mature and keep for 10-20yrs, that’s a nice range. I don’t find a lot of 2009 Beaujolais drinking well young for my palate, all need 5+yrs by my best guess; but I expect that when they do turn into silky wines @5+yrs, they have the concentration of fruit to go another decade or two at least, making them more like an excellent Pinot Noir Burgundy wine. Even better if they can make it to 30-40yrs, but not a requirement for me.
He told me all about it (you must have been busy getting your grove on)… He was very thankful to be at the tasting to say the least. I for one am pissed I was excluded.
Andy,
The 1990 cab you mentioned, I am sure, is the Steiner. I have never had fruit that wanted to become wine so badly. The moment it hit the fermenter it took off. I had to get blocks of ice which I put into plastic bags to try and slow it down. It melted almost immediately. My usual routine is 25+ days on the skins before pressing but not this one. It was over and done with quickly. And yes, it did have high VA. Whatever happened happpened within the first few days of fermentation as the level didn’t change much afterwards. Never figured that one out. Despite that it was still a cool wine. I am willing to put up with a little higher VA levels than a lot of people as it comes from doing things that I think allow the character of the vineyard to come out. Too much is too much but too little means too much control for my tastes.
Thanks for chipping-in - yes the cab is the Steiner. It’s really interesting to have the backstory on the wine - there’s just the one bottle left but I’ll make sure to share it with some wine geeks who’ll appreciate the story.
The vineyard-character thing is certainly an aspect I find in your wines and is definitely one of their charms for me, and I agree entirely that some VA is perfectly in keeping with that.
Now if you could organise for a wider selection of Swan wines to come to UK, then my work here would be done…!
Hated to miss this event … but the aforementioned wedding was the next day, so I don’t think it was in the cards But what great reports and notes. Sounds like a spectacular time. So many of these wines are deeply memorable … the Pentagon is the wine that created the Pinot bug in me that still bites with frequency today. Maybe the most memorable was a 73 – the first vintage of Estate – out of mag with Rod a couple years ago. The palate still resonates with me.
Grateful, Rod, you could make the wedding … on the heels of this event? That’s yeoman work! Cheers to all of you for making it happen. What a treat!
That’s a great writeup, Berry, of some very old friends.
It would be great to see a similar tasting of the Estate Chards. They always impressed me as well for their longevity.
Joe’s first one was, I believe, about a '73. Always the tightwad, Joe bought some used Bourbon barrels, broke them down
and scraped the insides, rebuilt them, and barrel frmted. Alas, he didn’t scrape enough and the Chard picked up a bit of a Bourbon taint.
Joe pi$$ed & moaned about the wine but finally decided to go ahead & release it w/ a warning about its “odd” character.
It actually developed into a rather interesting wine, a lot like an old Ratafia.
Tom
Yeoman’s work? It was a privilege and an honor to be invited! All I had to do was make the flight to Minneapolis the next day. Beautiful wedding and very beautiful bride. I had a great time sitting with your family, at your mothers insistence, after the wedding.
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But what great reports and notes. Sounds like a spectacular time. So many of these wines are deeply memorable … the Pentagon is the wine that created the Pinot bug in me that still bites with frequency today. Maybe the most memorable was a 73 – the first vintage of Estate – out of mag with Rod a couple years ago. The palate still resonates with me.