Looking back at my blog posts it turns out that this is the oldest bottle of American wine I have ever reviewed for the "What I'm Drinking Tonight" blog. A friend called us up and said she was coming over for dinner with two bottles of wine under her arms. Both bottles were American, one from 1990 and the other '95 but the one we opened on this night was the 1990 Dominus. She let me know about the Dominus beforehand and I looked it up to see what people were saying. In 1997 Parker said it would drink well up to 2017 while the folks on CellarTracker seemed a bit confused, saying things like "fishy" and "Any longer in the bottle this may not have been as good", yet still giving it low to mid 90's ... I had a different take. The nose and taste followed similar lines: plenty of dried leaves and oak dominant, with tannins providing most of the flavour. I wouldn't exactly call the wine dead, but it sure has crested the hill of aging and is on its way down ... Nice to see that a well-known label can still add a few mercy points to a score. I, on the other hand, am totally in agreement with this Cellar Tracker user who said in December 2009: "Losing it's fruit. I think this is on a downward spiral." ... and I'm trying it almost two years later. Thursday, October 13, 2011
Dominus 1990 Proprietor's Red (California)
Looking back at my blog posts it turns out that this is the oldest bottle of American wine I have ever reviewed for the "What I'm Drinking Tonight" blog. A friend called us up and said she was coming over for dinner with two bottles of wine under her arms. Both bottles were American, one from 1990 and the other '95 but the one we opened on this night was the 1990 Dominus. She let me know about the Dominus beforehand and I looked it up to see what people were saying. In 1997 Parker said it would drink well up to 2017 while the folks on CellarTracker seemed a bit confused, saying things like "fishy" and "Any longer in the bottle this may not have been as good", yet still giving it low to mid 90's ... I had a different take. The nose and taste followed similar lines: plenty of dried leaves and oak dominant, with tannins providing most of the flavour. I wouldn't exactly call the wine dead, but it sure has crested the hill of aging and is on its way down ... Nice to see that a well-known label can still add a few mercy points to a score. I, on the other hand, am totally in agreement with this Cellar Tracker user who said in December 2009: "Losing it's fruit. I think this is on a downward spiral." ... and I'm trying it almost two years later. 
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