I suppose we all come to a point in our drinking lives when we open yet another bottle of yet another respectable, well-regarded wine and shrug, jaded, resigning ourselves to yet another evening of predictable pleasure. What is to be done? Well, for starters, we train ourselves to pay more attention, to reach back into memory to remember why we’re here in the first place, what that first bottle was like, the time when the wine was the focus of everything, not the alcohol that washes away the cares of the day, not the hastily prepared food that serves as a haphazard coda to the day’s endeavors.So! This wine is getting on in years, its bouquet shot through with violets and summer strawberries and cream, edged with darker leather and tobacco. It’s as if someone spilled cassis liqueur in tobacconists with a significant overstock of paperback novels; it’s eating ice cream at a wake, it’s watching the London winter rage outside from within a greenhouse at Kew.Vibrant, acidic, with tannins that surprise quickly before fading entirely from view, I find the wine to be distinctly peppery and just a little bit simple; it’s much more an Old World model in terms of body, opting for nerve instead of plushness. Still, there’s a certain creaminess, languidly unfolding, that trails off into a finish that reminds me of unsmoked cigars you never knew your Dad smoked, but that you found poking around the basement as a child. All in all, this wine tastes like something unexpectedly retreived from memories you aren’t sure are yours to begin with, like a memory of wine drinkers past. It’s good.Grosset
Price: $28
Closure: Cork