1994 Liparita Howell Mountain

[mrdutton]

I was inspecting my wine rack day before yesterday. I noticed a small drop of a sticky substance around the capsule on a bottle of 1994 Merlot.

So I grabbed that bottle and set it upright to settle because I figured it was now or never for this one.

I opened the bottle this evening for dinner. Decanted it to separate the good juice from the sediment. While I was pouring the wine into the decanter, I could not help but smell the fruit in the air. So, I thought, this wine still has potential.

This dark purple juice, when the glass was half full, changed into a dark ruby red when the glass was down to the last sip. No hints of brown at the edges to suggest its youthful age of almost 10 years.

The nose smelled of plum to me with vanilla in the background. The mouth feel was smooth with just a hint of astringency on the finish.

Most likely this bottle was at its peak, but I am sure glad that I have about three or four more bottles sitting around.

Nicely balanced, I thought. Fruit, acid and tannin still floating around on the tongue and in the nose.

I sure am glad that I noticed the slight leakage past the cork. And I am even happier that I decided to open it and give it a chance. Drank it with a New England style dinner of corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, carrots and onions.

But also had some with some hard asiago cheese before dinner. That worked well also. The wine brought out the salt in the cheese....... The salt in the cheese brought out the fruit in the wine........

For me, this was a very nice bottle of Merlot.

[This message has been edited by mrdutton (edited 03-05-2003).]

[Innkeeper]

Glad you found a rare decent merlot. Thought what you described was an Irish dinner. You may be right though, it could have been invented by the Boston Irish.