B.V. Vertical Tastingby Dr. Bob Ouellette
Wednesday,
December 5, 2001
Assumption College Marriott Room 7:30 PM Another
surprising tasting…..The surprise here was the inclusion of B.V.’s
Rutherford Cabernet with the Private Reserves. To be a little fairer, I included
a 97 vintage that was thought to be quite good. Our tasting showed just that
with the score almost matching the 97 Private Reserve. When you consider that
the first cost approx. 5 times less than the Private Reserve, you have to run
out and stock up . What the other thing that I did here was to search the web sites of both Robert Parker’s new site and the Wine Spectator’s. Allowing for the fact that the W.S. scores are probably based on tastings that were held after the appearance of the wines and Parker’s a little bit closer to ours, one can surmise that we were a lot more in tune with R.P. As
for the 1990 bottle, we all agreed that it was probably a bad bottle. Too old
for its age and quite musty to say the least, some tasters still like the
offering. “non disputantur…” The stars of the evening were the 97s and
also the oldest wine, 1998. Notice the closeness of the scores for the 78…I
remember that this vintage was extolled as a great offering and obviously,
it’s still showing well. Yet, the 97s and 96s were clearly superior vintages
…. alas, the prices are also stratospheric….. Most
of the wines still held up to a nice ruby color. Bouquets and aromas were
similar, some a bit closed for the most recent. A common thread of cedar, black
fruit, tobacco, chocolate, and appreciable tannins with matching acids, offered
a complexity to the body that trailed off smoothly into the evening.
**
Probably a bad bottle |
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