Thursday, February 19, 2009

Old World Napa

I had an excellent experience the other day when a good friend of mine unexpectedly brought a bottle of 1997 Chateau Montelena over my father's house. As a lover of Bordeaux, I tend to find Cali wines to be quite boorish and over the top. That being said, I often find good ones to be quite delicious even while posessing the aforementioned qualities. For some reason though, I tend not to take them that seriously and when I want to open a really great bottle for someone, it very rarely comes from outside Europe.

My father had smoked a shoulder of pork over hickory for most of the day and I showed up with a lovely Barolo (which I'll probably post about later). The pairing was supurb.

On to the Montelena...

I was completely blown away by this wine. If I had simply been given a glass of it and been told it was Margaux, I would not have disputed this in the slightest. It seemed perfectly mature and had a lovely, supple texture. There were some nice rusty colours around the rim of the wine, but still plenty of depth of colour. The aromas were captivating and alongside the typical fruits you would expect with such a wine, I detected that delicious gamey aroma that you get when cleaning out a pheasant. If you don't know what that smells like, buy a bottle of this wine and you'll find out. What it didn't have was that confected, OTT kool-aid-y stuff you can get from expensive California bottles. Really, really classy.

The wine was absolutely supurb and really made me wonder why more wineries in California can't seem to put efforts like this together. Given the expense and apparent rarity of this particular wine, I doubt I will ever be in a position to have this wine again, but I am definately thankful for having it on that occasion. I would have to rate this as the best wine I've yet to taste from California.

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