The Grape Pursuit

One of my favorite things about having a wine cellar is that we can easily forget about bottles for, well, a decade or more.

We bought this Heron Hill Reserve Merlot on, we think, our very first Finger Lakes Trip (which was 3 or 4 trips ago, with another coming up) and promptly forgot about it in all the best ways. Almost 10 years later, we finally cracked it open.

After resting in a very good sleep, this Merlot was pale ruby in color with medium aromas of dried red cherry, vanilla, caramel, clove, red raspberry, cacao, to***co, dried herbs, mint, cassis, and violet.

On the palate, it was dry with medium acidity, smooth tannin, alcohol, body, and flavor intensity plus a medium(+) finish. We had notes of dried red cherry, dried cranberry, raspberry, cedar, wet stone, wet leaves, caramel, clove, forest floor, and perhaps a hint of mushroom.

Although this one probably could age a bit longer, the acidity, tannins, and flavors were developing nicely that we wouldn't have wanted to age this much longer.

Now to buy another bottle on our next trip coming up to forget for another decade!

Everyone we talk to who is seriously into wine has an origin bottle. You know, the one that whapped you across the face and made you realize just how amazing wine could be.

Chateau Musar's Rouge was that for us. But not only that, it was the 1998 vintage in particular that we tried in a Coravin pour at Wine Bar George at Disney.

We have had many more vintages of Musar over the years, and hold several in our cellar. But this week we cracked open the origin bottle and were reminded why we got into all this one more time.

Shame I'm out of the 98s now. But damn, what a memory.

Do you have an origin wine? Tell us about it in the comments!