Wine 5

This is another wine which almost made me very sad.

When it was fresh, this was a tannic wine with fruity overtones. I was fond of it, enough so to purchase four bottles and forget about two of them. My father turned me on to it, declaring it his house wine, if he had anything to say about it. I believe that, with a little help from me, we went through at least three cases of this excellent year.

I found the tannins to be more forward than I often like, but I love that the fruits can still be distinguished over them. With age, every quality I found to pleasant has been enhanced and the oak has fallen away. Like the others, it has no legs at all, and it is not a bad thing. The flavors fall away from the mouth, leaving plum skin and blueberries.

The aroma is mild and the color is beautiful. This wine has retained much more of any of its qualities than the previous wines, and those entirely to its credit.

I wish I had more to say to about this wine, but it's wonderful. It comes from the Central California coast. It was a good wine before and it has remained so. I believe Petite Sirah is one of the grapes that contributes to the misapprehension that all old wine is good wine. Quality wines preserved with care can become tasty old wines. This one certainly has done so.

One interesting note which I find I have room to mention here: these wines are destroyed by air in a matter of hours in the best cases and moments in the worst. In the space of time in which I consumed one glass of this wine, about fifteen minutes, the tannins came forward and the wine began to actively oxidize. This is a lovely, ephemeral experience, and it makes the exercise more fun, at least for me.

Speaking of lovely, ephemeral experiences, Happy Mother's Day!