I have had 16 vintages of Elivette. Enjoyed them all but I think the 08-09 wines are drinking superior to other vintages. 08 was the highest rated vintage on Cellartracker although many vintages scored very close to 08. There is bottle variation in these vintages but overall excellent wines. 93-94 point wines easy. Also like that 08 was one of the lower rated Elivette vintages by the wine critics. If 08 can turn into a great wine, then I have extremely high expectations for vintages like 15 and 16.
Also compared the 08 Elivette to the 2013 Cain Five. Preferred the style of Elivette better and it was drinking significantly better than Cain Five. Cain Five was not bad but it was closer to a 90 point wine. I would try other vintages of Cain Five if offered for Last Bottle price of $39.
I decided to drink my 13s. I donāt have the patience to wait 20 years for these wines and my sense is at that point the fruit will be gone. The 13 wasnāt a bad wine, but it doesnāt have potential if you enjoy ānew worldā style.
The nice thing bout liking new world style is that you donāt need to wait 12 or 30 years to get your enjoyment. Let them get over bottle shock if you believe in that and let er rip. Plush fruit and hidden structure.
These arenāt that, although they arenāt exactly old Dunn or Togni either. Somewhere in between Iād think.
Not everyone likes aged wines. Lots of people like my good friend Jeff who I drink with all the time likes big primary wines and drinks his Napa cabs within 10 years.
Iāve opened bottles of most of the vintages that have been sold either through the SMV sale or via Last Bottle, with the exception of 2001, 2002, 2010 and then the newer vintages (2016 through 2019). Iāve found them to all be excellent and pretty consistent stylistically from year to year. Oddly enough, the 2009 has been my least favorite because of a pronounced baking spice note that Iāve chalked up to toasty new oak that has yet to integrate. Iām sure it will be lovely once that recedes a bit but for now, itās hard for me to taste around it.
With all the controversy around 2013, the bottles that Iāve opened have tasted young, closed off and in need of more time ā Iām bullish that theyāll eventually come around. Same goes for 2014 and 2015. To my palate, these wines seem to show best with 15+ years of age.
The 2004, 2006, 2011 and 2012 have been the most consistently excellent (2007 was beautiful as well, but Iāve only had it once out of 375), with 2005, 2003 and 2000 a notch behind, and then 2013, '14 and '15 simply too young to render judgment. I opened my first 750 of 2008 a couple nights ago and it tasted like a more resolved version of the 2009 ā I would put it in the top tier of these wines, but Iāll hold off on ranking until Iāve opened another bottle or two.
Overall, despite the ridiculous amount of this wine Iāve purchased over the last 9-10 months, Iām still in shock over how good of a deal this all was and very happy with the cases of this wine cluttering up my basement.