Community Tasting Note

Saturday, January 28, 2023 - Bought a few more of these to play with because this has been a perplexing bottle. I am starting to think there is some bottle variation with these as this is the second bottle (of four) that I have tried that has felt a bit stuck.
On Pnp day 1 this was incredibly floral, so much so that for a minute I thought the wrong soap had been used on the decanter. But no, I had washed 2 at the same time and the other one had no aromas. First taste was wound up and tart with cherries, plums cranberries. Put back in bottle and corked, left at cellar temp overnight. This has worked well previously and brought out the sweeter notes and complexity.
Day 2 seems almost shut down. With aggressive swirling violets and plums on the nose. Tart fruit on the palate and bitter chocolate with a long finish. But not as expressive or complex as I would have hoped. No green notes (none of the nettles of my last bottle ) and very astringent.
I will give this another day and see if it wakes up. Otherwise a big waste of $200+

Edit: day 3 there was some evolution, a little more on the nose, some licorice. But mostly bitter woody tannins. I have to conclude that this bottle was flawed

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11 comments have been posted

Comment posted by Mark1npt:

1/29/2023 9:33:00 PM - Sorry to hear this, DQ. It was a nice wine for us before.
Comment posted by Decanting Queen:

1/30/2023 2:48:00 AM - I tried hard to get it to come to life but I think it was more than just shutdown.
Comment posted by Mark1npt:

1/30/2023 6:12:00 AM - Yeah, I read what you did. Don't know what else you could have done.....a real bummer. Sounds exactly like how my bottles of La Pelle cab that I got at auction have been, and some of y Lerner Project, too. I'm thinking those bottles were 'cooked' in some way by their previous owner. Maybe this bottle was, too?
Comment posted by Decanting Queen:

2/1/2023 3:18:00 AM - I think so. Either cooked or corked. Interestingly, the two bad ones weren’t from the same batch!
Comment posted by Mark1npt:

2/1/2023 4:08:00 AM - The only other place I can think of where these 'bitter, woody tannins' could have come from, is just bad pressing, incorporating too much pressure crushing the seeds and imparting these exact types of bitter, woody tannins into the wine. But, that would mean somebody at the winery screwed up big time. Maybe today, with the labor pool being what it is, even with high end producers like these, we are getting 'batches' of wines that are poorly made?
Comment posted by Decanting Queen:

2/2/2023 2:57:00 AM - Mark, maybe but I’d be surprised if this was human error at the winery. SQN has pretty high standards. And this preceded the recent labor ‘crisis.’ I think this last one could have been corked without being overtly smelling musty—all the fruit and intensity was sucked out of it. Regardless it is frustrating for a bottle at that price, especially one that CAN be so good.
Comment posted by Mark1npt:

2/2/2023 6:17:00 AM - Must have been corked then, if the fruit was 'all sucked out of it'.......
Comment posted by Decanting Queen:

2/2/2023 6:53:00 AM - I think so. This was worse than the one that I had before that was just super tight and never got much better than a 92. This bopttle was borderline not drinkable as time went on. In face, we didn't drink most of it
Comment posted by Mark1npt:

2/2/2023 7:14:00 AM - Well, that info clarifies things quite a bit! Didn't realize it was quite that bad.....for the price, that's very demoralizing. No hope of contacting the winery for replacement?
Comment posted by Decanting Queen:

2/3/2023 2:59:00 AM - Auction bottle…
Comment posted by Mark1npt:

2/3/2023 6:16:00 AM - Rats!