So last year, when the world was a different place, I got a lot of 1996 Jadot Bonnes Mares from the Mark Golodetz cellar auction at Heritage Auctions, figuring that the cellar of a fellow wine fanatic would have perfect provenance and storage.
I was right about that – both bottles I have had from this lot had absolutely perfect cork, fill, label and external appearance. Thanks for taking such good care of these bottles for me, Mark! However, the first bottle was kind of musty and thin, with little fruit evident – I’m not very sensitive to TCA but I figured it must have been corked, so I waited for a second to post a TN.
Based on this second bottle I was right. Plenty of fruit was in evidence right out of the bottle, totally different than the first. But on the pop and pour it was also not very harmonious and more than a little rustic. There was a pronounced metallic note, almost a rusty metal quality, and a jangly acidic/tannic that clashed with the fruit. Still, it was very hearty so I was enjoying drinking it anyway.
Around 90 minutes (?) in, when over two-thirds of the bottle was already drunk, there was a gradual but pronounced change in the wine. The metallic note receded, and the acidity and tannin rearranged themselves into a more balanced structure with the fruit. The fruit itself seemed to deepen and get more profound, picking up a really deep almost tomato paste (in a good way) type note as it seemed to fuse with the acidity. Like glimpsing some kind of huge animal emerging out of the fog, a massively deep, structured, and regal wine made itself known, with intense but savory black fruit underpinning the whole structure. Definitely not power without weight, more like a very weighty but also very harmonious and pleasing power. Unfortunately I didn’t have much wine left to enjoy this or watch it develop further.
I am generally a skeptic of decanting, especially older wines, it seems like trying to bludgeon the wine into submission, and you can never really predict the effect (sometimes you’re missing the best part of the wine). Also I’m lazy and don’t like to wait. But this is a classic example of why decanting can be indispensable. So my PSA on this wine is – DECANT IT, which I will do on future bottles.