Tasting notes are a challenge, some wines are worth the effort...

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.

Next up, 1999 Beaux Frères “Belles Soeurs-Yamhill County Cuvée” Pinot Noir.

Also inexpensive, listed under 40 bucks at K&L.

My wife and I like to blind challenge each other, and she had this lying in wait when I got home from work one evening.

These are truly blind tasting: eyes closed.

When first popped, I got no nose from this. No fruit, some slight acidity, but utterly lacking in clues of any sort.

It has some age mustiness but that was it.

I guessed a 2005 chard from a producer we stopped buying from because the wines didn’t age well. This wine gave me nothing.

Nope!

After about 30 minutes, it became a pinot noir. Very thin on the fruit, the extreme of an AFWE wine. But hints appeared at the edges of tasting it…like Voldemort in the fourth Harry Potter film, only not evil.

After an hour, it became a delicious lean lively pinot noir…in perfect Oregon style. It started to really strut its stuff.

We sipped it over a course of three hours and had some Asian noodles with sesame.

Through the night, it developed perfectly integrated fruit/structure with a lively light berry scent and flavor. The finish got longer and longer, rear upper palate. No overt oak or any tannins that drew attention to themselves.

It’s ready to enjoy now. If you buy one, be sure to give it an hour or so to wake up before you judge it, it is really delicious!

People who claim wine doesn’t evolve after the cork is popped are crazy.

$70 for 1986 Gloria?

Ouch. It was under $20 on release.

I feel like Gloria was still only $25ish 10-15 years ago…

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Nice notes Anton, glad you got to share some fun wines with the fam.

I’ve had them in the cellar, but trying to list availability with these tastings.

Great notes! Thanks for sharing