I went back to the store and grabbed a bottle of this wine and spent the last week trying to re-assess it.
We tasted it for days on end with barbecue [and Brunswick stew] from two different restaurants.
I had been wanting to classify this wine as something rather more delicate than it is, but it’s not at all brittle [or prone to wilting], and in fact it has the strangest doggedly persistent elasticity about it - it bends but it doesn’t break - and just when you think it’s been vanquished by something like a vinegar-seasoned pork, it sneaks its way back in & surreptitiously re-seizes the upper hand in the gustatory struggle.
The mouthfeel is viscous & unctuous [for such an ostensibly light-bodied wine] - almost creamy - and the synesthesia is kinda gray-ish [certainly much murkier than what you see in the glass, which is effectively transparent].
This is the best barbecue wine I’ve ever had in my life.
And I certainly would not pour it as a cocktail sipper - it has to be served with food.
It was implacable for days on end, and only now, on Day Nine, is it starting to show some sherried notes.
My gut instinct is that this wine could be cellared for decades [especially if you could find it in magnums].
Certainly if you could hold it for twenty or thirty [or even forty] years, and then pop the cork to that sherried smell, this could be something very special.
As I enjoyed my first cup of coffee this morning, I did a quick double take on the subject heading when I saw the words “Simian” and barbecue together.
This is valuable information. I picked up a couple '16s last year and was encouraged to hold them by my local retailer. I didn’t get mags, but at least an 8-10 yr timeline seems reasonable from your note. I have not yet tasted the wine young or old.
But I have had the 2016 Punggl [Pinot Grigio], and it was a monster of a wine.
In fact, I first tasted the 2015 Sirmian next to the 2016 Punggl, which is why my initial impression of the 2015 Sirmian was of a much more delicate wine than it proved to be, and why I wanted to go back and revisit the wine.
I don’t know whether you’ve tasted the Nals Margreid portfolio before, but the flavors and textures were completely foreign to me - way outside my realm of experience.
And if you haven’t tasted the Margreids before, then don’t come at them with some preconceived notion of what a white wine ought to taste like [Fingerlakes Riesling -vs Chablis -vs- Loire Chenin Blanc -vs- whatever].
Study them for what they are, and for the sake of Goodness, pair them with food.
These are food wines par excellence - and, if my suspicions are correct, highly cellarable.
On the way home from the store, after getting the Sirmian, we stopped by The Master’s place, but it was closed, and I thought to myself, “My Goodness, it sure looks mighty dark in there.”
Then on Christmas Eve, after two days of eating fake barbeque, I tried calling The Master, but the phone company said that the phone had been disconnected, and I thought to myself, “Uh oh, this doesn’t sound good.”
In the end, we drove over to Alamance, and got Hursey’s for Christmas [at what is now officially the new World’s Greatest Restaurant Crossroads - Hursey’s & Smithfield’s - Hwy 119 at Exit 153 of I-40/I-85].
This sounds very interesting to me; maybe I should see if I can pick up another couple bottles to taste now. Should I serve with lighter or fattier fare?