Paul, Sarah, and Amelia - Friday Night Wines

Paul, Sarah and Amelia made the trip up to see us last weekend, and so we had the opportunity to open and share a few bottles on Friday night.

1996 Bollinger Grande Annee Brut Champagne – This was another Sam’s Club special…again, while not perfect, it was decent and hard to argue with the $35 price point. The bottle was clearly aged more than it should have been, but was neither completely oxidized nor devoid of fruit, flavor or enjoyment. It was a full golden color, and actually led well into the bottle to be served next.

1976 Schramsberg Reserve Brut Sparkling – Paul’s birth year is ’76, and as I told Paul, I’ve had more of his birth year wines than of my own. As I feel like I have “grown up in wine” with Schramsberg, these bottles always have special meaning to me. Add to that fact that I’ve been able to share Schramsberg with just about all of my friends and family at one point or another, and you can start to understand my bias towards them. In any case, for a California Sparkling wine that is 35 years old, this showed beautifully. This is not a bottle that you are looking for a lot of citrus and bright fruit. Instead, it’s a flavor profile of honey, caramel, and toast. I inherited this bottle from my formal boss, Sean, and I’m glad to have another tucked away in the cellar.

2001 Damilano Barolo – For dinner we were making home-made pizzas and I wanted to have an Italian red to go with them. I don’t have a lot of Italian wines, but I was pretty interested in trying this ten year old Barolo. This was another bottle that I was given for cellar inventory work, so it would be a one shot deal. From the start, it was the right pick. I don’t know if this wine was better at a previous point, but it was super enjoyable. It had a wonderful bouquet, dark color, and full flavor. It also still had enough tannins to cut through the sausage and peppers on one of our delicious pizzas! Probably only $30 or so at retail when it was available, it makes me think that I should try to identify more Italian wines for future storage and consumption.

2003 Spottswoode Cabernet Sauvignon – As the Barolo went so quickly, we needed one more bottle to finish off the night. This was a bottle that I had brought to D.C. for Scott’s wedding weekend, but we never got to it. Spottswoode makes terrific cabernets, and they can be enjoyed both young and aged. This wine was in an in-between stage, but it still delivered. It showed elegant fruit, some oak & vanilla, and some chewy tannins. If there were any issues, it might have been a slightly short finish, but nothing to quibble over. I believe I bought this wine direct from the winery for about $110 a bottle. Not a cheap wine, but reliable and age-worthy. Unfortunately I don’t order direct from them anymore, but always still look for them at retail.