Still a dark translucent red in the glass, with minimal lightening around the rim. The nose is probably the best part about this wine right now - underbrush, ripe red fruits and the slightest whiff of funk. On the palate, though, the wine comes across as a touch disjointed. Ripe fruit, almost overripe in that liquer-like fashion, but slightly unfocused and still pinched in the mid-palate by slightly bitter/drying wood tannins.
I don’t have enough experience with this particular winemaker to really put my finger on why this wine fails to deliver for me. When it was younger, I felt it was too modern-styled to convey what it is I like about aglianico. Now that a few years have passed, I’m not sure if the heat of the vintage didn’t also come into play - according to the label, the wine carries 14.5% alcohol, not bad for a zin, but probably more than an aglianico should bear. All in, drinkable, but not a wine that will seemingly pull itself together more harmoniously at this stage of the game.
wow, thanks for the note! i was looking at my two bottles of this that i had buried while picking out some bordeaux from my cellar. i was wondering how it was doing.
when it was released i remember a lot of dark fruits, but very backwards and a huge wall of tannin.
i wanted to hang on to it for 5-7 years before i checked in. i guess that time is about now.
did you decant at all? what do you plan to do with any remaining bottles?
Mike, just popped & poured. And I never bothered putting this into my CT inventory, so I’m not sure if I have any left, and if so, how many. That being said, I don’t think this wine is ready to dive off a cliff anytime soon, so don’t feel compelled to pull a cork. My only point was that if folks were waiting for a “revelation in a botle”, I don’t think it’s going to happen.
Thanks for the insight Bob. I didn’t think this wine would become anything amazing, I just thought for the price it would be cool to watch it unfold since there was some good raw materials in it.
I think I’ll wait on my bottles for a little longer. I cant remember how much I paid, but I know it wasn’t too much.