I was prompted to pull out a bottle of Rosemount wine by my mother, who called to tell me she had just had a lovely Rosemount wine the night before in a restaurant and wanted to know where she could get the same bottle. I told her that I believe it to be readily available at the LCBO (Ontario's liquor monopoly) - this prompted me to check my CellarTtracker account for bottles of Rosemount I might have in my possession. Turns out I have (had) 6 bottles of Rosemount wine - three from 2002 and three Show Reserve GSM from 2006. Thought I would try one of the older bottles ... then another ... then another. The first bottle I opened was a 2002 Shiraz/Cabernet - I believe part of the diamond line - yuck, alcohol laced raisins, this bottle had gone very sherry-like, somewhere between PX and off-putting ... I looked more closely and found the offending plastic cork at the end of my corkscrew ... I ran downstairs and grabbed the other two bottles. The second to be opened was a bottle of 2002 Cabernet/Merlot, part of the same series, it was a little better but hardly worth drinking - it was laced with sherry notes but also had some elements of dried fruit - but not appealing in any way. Again sealed with plastic - this stuff is a blight on bottled wine. Finally, with a heavy heart I opened the 2002 Merlot (it had a purple label) and was sealed with a cork, a natural cork. There was NO sherry noticeable on the nose or palate. There was a forest floor aroma, dried fruit, wood-derived tannins - but with some hints fruit roll-up (fruit leather) ... then came mocha which lasted to the finish combining all aspects of what the mid-palate was experiencing: forest floor, dried raspberry and strawberry ... while not the best wine I have ever tried I found this 10 year old Merlot to be quite exciting and interesting at the same time.
No comments:
Post a Comment