Phil_T_r_o_t_t_e_r:
2000 Guigal Château d’Ampuis
My guess is that this might have benefitted from a decant. I opened a '98 Brune et Blonde last month and it was clearly better after 90 minutes than it was on opening. I posted a note:
I opened my last bottle of this on Thursday, and it was a very good showing.
When I first pulled the cork and sampled it, it seemed a bit tart and narrow, so I held off decanting. I was afraid it might be thinning/fading. Ultimately, I decanted about 90 minutes before we sat down to our main course.
By the time we started drinking it, this had fleshed out and was surprisingly youthful, fruity and fleshy – not a huge amount of tertiary development. There was no apparent oak, but the wine had a …