1997 Gallo Barrelli Creek Cabernet

[newsguy]

on a whim, i stopped by a local wine shop yesterday that often has older vintages of really good wines show up in its climate-controlled "fine wine" room.

jackpot! found six bottles of '97 barrelli creek cab. [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/biggrin.gif[/img] grabbed them all and popped one last night to go with filet mignon (rubbed with sea salt and black pepper, topped w/ bleu cheese).

it was the best bottle of this wine i've ever had. wine is browning and taking on the flavors of a mature cali cab, but still has lots of barrelli creek-ness to it: absolutely huge aromas and flavors of plum, black cherry & cedar, plus a touch of brown sugar and spice. finish kept going and going. still some acidity here, and more sediment caked on the bottle than any wine i've ever seen. at least a third of the bottle was coated black. but with careful decanting, got all but maybe 2 ounces of the bottle before the sediment really started to flow. i will treasure these last five bottles, and drink them over the next two or three years. 93 points.

and get this: since i also bought six bottles of '99 lake sonoma cab to get a mixed-case discount, i ended up paying $20.99 per bottle for the barrelli creek! as i recall, when i bought my case on release, i paid $19.99 per.

i think this find out drew-skied the inspector! [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/wink.gif[/img]