|
|
| Chateau/Producer: | Christian Brothers | | Wine Name: | Pinot Saint George | | Country: | USA | | State: | California | | Region: | Napa | | Wine Score: | 82 | | Notes: | My aunt bought two bottles of this wine in 1975, and finally decided to find out if it was still any good or not. This was a real adventure; one of the bottles was leaking a bit, but the other one's cork looked good. We opened the leaky one first, assuming that it would be bad. Actually, it turned out to be the better of the two. When we went to remove the cork from the non-leaky one, the cork crumbled badly and broke off half-way. We were able to pull out the rest, but it also pretty much fell apart on removal. This wine was more distinctly vinegary than the other one, so we'll make our notes on the leaky bottle.
Its color is a bricky red, fading significantly towards the edges, first an orangey red and then almost a brownish-yellow, like dried mustard. The nose was muted, with pencil shavings and muted berries. The flavor is rather sharp and acidic, probably heading towards the land of vinegar, but it's not there yet. This wine is definitely past its prime, and who knows if this grape was ever destined for long cellaring, but it's held up rather well for a 30+ year old wine. I've had brand-new wines that tasted worse. I won't exactly regret the lack of opportunity to try this again, but it was interesting to see what can happen to a wine over several decades...too bad it wasn't a cab, because that might have been delicious. | | Tasting Date: | 2006-12-24 | | Varietal: | Negrette | | Additional Notes: | The wine type, "Pinot Saint Georges," is apparently a name given by Christian Brothers to a fairly obscure varietal called Negrette. Back in the 70's, it was not uncommon to make up fancy French-sounding names for your wine to suggest quality. I read online that the Negrette is sort of like a cross between Grenache and Sangiovese, but it was hard to tell with this bottle. | | Source: | purchcased in Florida in 1975 |
|
