TN: Sine Qua Non Midnight Oil 2001

[John_Liotta]

Sine Qua Non Midnight Oil 2001:
This used to be one of my favorite SQNs. It is probably the one I own the most of. Perhaps I am simply no longer enamored with this wine or my romance with winery with waning, but this showing (and some others) have left me wondering if SQN and I are really best friends any more. The wine had its typical blackish/purple color and aromatic nose of acacia flowers, smoke, melted fruit candy and toasted oak. There seemed to be tad less zing in the acid profile and a touch more viscosity this go around. The fruit was black and pure, packed and dense, with camphor and menthol crammed in around it. Still super-rich, still pleasure-filled, still hedonistic and but perhaps a little less rambunctious than I remember. 92 points

[Steve_Manzi]

@John Liotta

Sine Qua Non Midnight Oil 2001:
This used to be one of my favorite SQNs. It is probably the one I own the most of. Perhaps I am simply no longer enamored with this wine or my romance with winery with waning, but this showing (and some others) have left me wondering if SQN and I are really best friends any more. The wine had its typical blackish/purple color and aromatic nose of acacia flowers, smoke, melted fruit candy and toasted oak. There seemed to be tad less zing in the acid profile and a touch more viscosity this go around. The fruit was black and pure, packed and dense, with camphor and menthol crammed in around it. Still super-rich, still pleasure-filled, still hedonistic and but perhaps a little less rambunctious than I remember. 92 points

John

I owned three bottles of this, and I opened one every 18 months or so. I was never wowed by it at all. My impressions, and the ones at the table of wine geeks each time, were all the same…“Seems like there might be a lot going on here…but must need time” Always seemed muted to me, or shut down. But after the third bottle about a year or so ago, I just wrote it off as an overhyped wine that just didn’t deliver what was expected. YMMV…maybe I just got unlucky? Bought them on release and stored them in wine units here in my house.

[Andrew_Hall]

This was the wine for which I coined the phrase (applied to all SQN), ‘a Chuck D’ wine.

- YouTube

A.

[Ken_V]

@Andrew Hall

This was the wine for which I coined the phrase (applied to all SQN), ‘a Chuck D’ wine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASjH7X-jAY4

A.

Damn it’s good to hear that again!

[Drewt]

I think this wine is sensitive I had it once and was going to sell my remaining bottles. I was convinced to try it again and for the price I think I’d rather drink it than Poker Face.

Dont know if it is truly bottle variation because of the juice or because of storage conditions but I’d rate the first bottle high 89/low 90’s and the second one high 90’s, ie 97ish

[John_Liotta]

I guess I am more consistent than I thought:

11/02/08

Sine Qua Non Midnight Oil 2001:
This is was as good as a showing as I’ve had of this wine this year. Probably good since I own a bunch. Its black in the glass and is almost impossible to see through. You can smell the alcohol and the oak in the first fifteen. You can smell lots of other things if given a chance (if other people don’t try to devour it), like licorice and violets and eucalyptus. This is not a wine for the faint of heart, small children with fake IDs, old people, the French or James Laube. But, you know, I liked it. 94 points


Overall I have probably had this wine 12 or 13 times.

[M.Kaplan]

I think Midnight Oil is not as good as it was a couple of years ago. It has lost its palate vibrancy and the depth of its aroma, which I thought was its best quality when younger. A good SQN Syrah earlier in its life, but never a great one. In my opinion, each of its successors is better than MO.