It’s not uncommon to open a bottle you had high hopes for and end up a little or a lot disappointed. I love it when the opposite happens. I love Cab Franc, so take this with a grain of salt…
1997 P-J Druet Clos de Danzay Chinon – maybe $14 on release
Tarragon, little garrigue, and red fruit nose. Still powerfully fruity – round and lush with a mix of bright and dark cherry fruit and some pomegranate. Moderately long finish. A 20+ year old wine at peak that wildly over-delivers. (FWIW: I had a glass of this in September via Coravin and just uncorked it to finish the remainder tonight – 5 months and it was exactly as it was when I first tried it).
It would be fascinating to see how this modest Chinon might do in a blind BDX tasting.
Anyone uncork a surprising bottle lately?
I like this thread, and have had similar experiences, but can’t remember some of the good surprising experiences. I did have something like this last night though. I recently bought the 2011 Arghata Black Label Syrah from garagiste. I am sure Jon wrote some lovely amazing prose that made me think, oh my, I have to have that. So I bought three. Then saw some reviews that suggested it was a less than stellar wine (I must have looked at reviews before I bought, but either new ones came in or I did not pay much attention to them, not sure). Anyway, I was thinking this would be an ok but not amazing wine (and given the amount of wine I already have and my hope of cutting down my frequency of consumption, I really don’t need wine that is ok, or interesting, but not something I really want or enjoy). Opened up the first one last night. At first, actually quite good, though a little too hot I thought. But then after a few hours it really evolved and became quite lovely. In fact so much so that I would be tempted to buy more! So a very pleasant surprise.
Thanks for posting, Jim, a pleasant surprise indeed! Funnily enough, one of my biggest surprises in 2018 was a Chinon 1997 too - Clos de L’Echo. Sadly, Pierre-Jacques Druet sold his domain to Ampelidae a few years ago. Occasionally, his wines still pop up on the market - I’ll look out for one to try.