Birthdays qualify as a special occasion to open that “special” wine and tonight we celebrated my 54th. A day of celebration to be certain for I realized that it was 27 years ago when I was 27 years old that I was hit head on by a drunk driver. I should have been dead but the Lord had other plans.

So my wife bought some inch and a quarter thick strip steaks to grill and I opened that wine. I bought it last winter in Chicago when I was there on a business trip as was (NW) of that blog. We had an evening rendezvous at his hotel and shared a bottle of white Burgundy. But on with that review:

This St. Emilion Grand Cru is intensely pigmented with a dark black cherry hue that clings to the glass and is as intense at the rim as at the center.

The bouquet on opening is rich and deep

with dark fruit and and a musty earth scent. The palate is tight with robust tannins and bready fruit first impression.

After fifteen minutes of breathing there are loads of sweet black cherry and plums in the bouquet and is amazingly new world in style with fruit forward steely fruit. (Michelle Roland?)

Tannins are juicy and immature but fresh fruit just exudes in the bouquet with sweet grapes. that is really nice. It is not precisely a fruit bomb but it is so similar to a Napa wine that I would have never have guessed it to be Bordeaux. It will age well for several years but is drinking really well now. I paid $24 for it and wished I had bought more. (Wine Spectator gave that wine a 90 on their 100 point scale.) Raise a glass!

Original post by PB