So a little story before the TN - hey @Morgan_Twain-Peterson you might like this. So I’d bought a couple of these off Winebid as a well, it’s 6 to 5 and pick em on a nearly 30 year old Sonoma Cab from California’s transitional period. We had some friends over last November for green enchiladas and the first bottle was… tired. It was fine to drink, but I chalked it up to storage issues and you win some you lose some. But in my mind I relegated the other bottle to the drink whenever pile.
Well tonight was that night. I had made fajita-themed quesadillas for the kids and remembered I had the other bottle and opened it up and I was totally wrong. It’s barely bricking at the edges but still a strong garnet throughout. Lots of mint and cigarbox and some almost Zin-ripe fruit but more red than black. Lots of stuffing and some umami and balanced acidity too. I’m drinking a glass now after it’s been open for 5 hours and it’s just starting to slip into seafood gumbo flavors and leave Cabernet behind.
Anyway, it’s fantastic and one of those wines that I wish I’d had some drinking age friends around to share it with. Morgan, please tell your dad he did good.
Thanks,
Zachary
2 Likes
Cool bottle and story…just pushes the no great wines only great bottles saying when they get this old.
Pretty sure Joel is here and you can @ him too.
I have had a lot of great 1996s from my dad’s cellar over the last couple of years. I think it’s really an overlooked gem of a vintage for Northern California.
1 Like
Thans for the story. Brings back some memories of that wine.
I had many a Ravenswood Gregory Vineyard cab back in the 90’s. The eucalyptus notes were quite prevalent. (On the verge of Vick’s vapo-rub.) I finally visited the winery (circa 1994) and driving away passed the Gregory Vineyard and saw the huge eucalyptus trees along the vineyard. It was a wonderful example of seeing terroir in wine.
Years later, I told @Morgan_Twain-Peterson and dad Joel Peterson about that. They laughed and reminsiced how the harvest team would complain about picking in that vineyard as they would get covered in eucalyptus oil.
That 1996 was one of my favorites of the Ravenswood lineup. Quick story: was visiting the winery ~1998 to pickup my svd zins with my buddy and his wife. We brought lunch and after tasting this we decided to pickup a bottle for lunch. It was so good I went and bought two.
1 Like
It would be very interesting to look into how what is obviously a eucalyptol input to the wine turns over time into mint. My copy of McGee’s Nose Dive has both mint carvone and eucalpytol as part of a family of “minty-herbal monoterpenoids” along with menthol, fenchone (fennel), perilla aldehyde (shiso), cuminaldehyde and dill ether.
Thanks for the stories,
Zachary
I 100% agree! In fact, it might be my favorite vintage of the decade
1 Like