I like to post tasting notes after looking up whether or not a wine is easily had, and delicious. Last night was such a case!
Opened it, moderately gently decanted, and then immediately started tasting a 1986 Chateau Gloria last night.
It was perfect, and under 70 bucks on Wine Searcher.
My 21 year old son joined us at a Hi Fi Show and we served this to him…he plotzed!
His first descriptor was “iodine,” and he is not a wine vocab kinda kid. It was true. If you like iodine/salinity, then this wine will wow you.
The fruit was, well, at the point where we said this wine had been waiting for today to reach perfection. A little cedary berry, a very complex well rounded not over the hill dark red berry, but not overtly fruity - you had to approach it rather than it approaching you. Very mouth filling with side of tongue and top front and top rear palate fruit that lingered like there was no tomorrow. I can still imagine it.
There was minerality with the iodine, and the acidity was perfectly in harmony with everything else. Just enough tannins still present to tell me I can still comfortably wait on my other bottle(s.)
Quell horror, we tasted with Burgundy stems.
The three of us sat and stared at it, smelled it, tasted it, delicious. We left some for a couple of hours after dinner and it held up with no decline. You can drink this through an evening.
No pics, and the hotel housekeeper took the bottle today! You’ll just have to trust me.
Yesterday was also a 2011 Rochioli River Block chardonnay that also seems at peak. I would have guessed 2015. Lots of turpene character (I mean that in the best abstract tropical fruit way) with the kind of acidity you can sometimes note with a good olive oil. Not overtly oaky or too lactic acidy and solid balance balance balance, with a forever finish.
This is 80 bucks on Wine Searcher and I’d call it a bargain.