Posted from CellarTracker
Sean – is this your first experience with this bottle? I fortunately have not run into a flawed Pax wine, but I would guess if it was truly flawed Joe or Tripp would try to do something for you if you got the bottle directly from the winery.
As an aside, I was emailing the other day with Tripp about the new mailer, and I was telling him I was hesitant about the $75 price tag for this year’s Obsidian. I mentioned that I had never tried the Obsidian bottling before, and that I had some 2006 that I was sure was too young or I would pop one to get a sense of the site. He wrote back saying to try one after giving it a good decant, and if I thought it was too early we would work something out. I hope I’m not telling tales out of school or suggesting that I would take advantage of that offer – just trying to say these guys take customer service seriously.
Brad,
Thanks for the info. This is my first experience with this bottle, but I have had other Pax bottles over the years. I bought the bottle at wine exchange in CA. It is a pretty well know place to purchase wine in the So Cal area.
Sean
Great customer service company, definitely call.
did you decant the 05 Christine Sean?
a note on the 04 CC from 12/28/07:
figured, for all intents & purposes, it is 08 so on a very cold and blustery Nor-Cal night i thought it was time to road test the most approachable of the 100% Syrah offerings from Pax.
timing i believe was OK as i decanted the wine for nearly 45 minutes before serving it with stuffed pork chops and steamed green beans. wine was consumed over a couple of hours while i did some chores and changed minimally over that time. last sip was close to the initial taste.
thought provoking - yes. hard to characterize - yes. would i guess varietal - no. would i buy again - not sure…
the color is Smoke-On-the-Water Deep Purple. forget seeing your fingers thru the glass - there could be sea creatures in the bottom and you’d never know! nose has a striking industrial garage/Harley repair shop note that the Pax website describes as iodine or creosote thru the varying vintages of Cuvée Christine? nose did evolve slightly to become more herbaceous as the wine took on air but only a nuance change really.
mouthfeel was lacking for a wine of this pricepoint. not silky but definitely rich. do not expect Cote Rôtie as you will not find it. taste was definitely easy to differentiate. early and mid-palate separate smoothly as early on dark fruit dominates but then the garage thing reappears as a taste and your brain begins to think “this will get bitter” but that never happens! this industrial note finishes sweet and steady - not bitter @ all. the very last sip i had fooled me just as the 1st taste did.
cool wine that distracted me from a series of difficult tasks. i have more but maybe i wait for this time next year?
now a TN from 12/29/08, also on the 2004:
this wine has come a long way baby in 12 short months. several hour decant and we all enjoyed this wine with the UFC fight and i did not notice the industrial/garage thing @ all now though i did still get a slight whiff of chemical/iodine/creosote with the initial nose.
still dark but with better mouthfeel while i felt the finish was sweet and prolonged. could tell this was Syrah now without difficulty.
wine went from chemistry class to English composition/poetry in one year. impressive.
Sean,
Doesn’t quite sound corked but maybe just off. I had this a few months ago and it still needed time. Here is my note:
Posted from CellarTracker
Thanks for all the notes, and I am no expert in identifying a corked wine, but off it is to me. It has been open about two hours now, and I have been hanging to see if something happens. Not much has picked up