I increasingly enjoy the experience of leaving a half bottle for the next day or two having reached the conclusion that this tells you how a wine is likely to age and by corollary more about the integrity with which it is made. This rests on the assumption that wine is meant to age, an assumption which is debatable in modern wine-making practise. But let’s leave that sleeping dog.
Some of this last weekend’s open bottles were re-tasted last night, and the results were quite opposite in success. Robertson Winery have a vineyard selection range that’s meant to be their premium stuff and in this a sauvignon blanc called Retreat, named after a single farm. The 2005 version of this wine was juicy and tangy when I first tasted it, lithe in body and with a little mineral/flinty hint. Quite delightful in a flirtatious way. The other wine opened that day was the Newton Johnson Chardonnay 2004, which is medium as chards go, with 40% new oak and a good citric burst, decent acidity.
The re-tasting left both wines worse off, but the damage was certainly more pronounced on the Sauvignon which had lived up to its name and backed off into near oblivion. A very short effort in the front of the palate and then nothing. Water.
The Chardonnay was more intact, with citrus still there to tease the tongue, though it had lost some of its poise and presence. Certainly the wine that I now hold in higher stead, simply because I don’t like the idea of supposedly fine wines being propped up and jimmy-rigged to suggest personality when they are in fact only facade.
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