You mightn't think there's much chance of such a recollection surviving in the murky depths of Hughesy's subconscious, but that's what the nose made me think of. Not necessarily a recollection, but a surmise about how those ancient dusty leather bound tomes may have smelled.
I could have sat savouring the aroma for ages, but the lumparump was in the oven, the alarm pinged and there were steps that needed to be taken re. eating, so I took an initial sip before I set about dishing up the evening meal.
Since we were talking big hairy steak I was looking for big hairy tannins, but while they were there in spades, and despite the leather notes on the nose, the mouth-feel was surprisingly silky. Very stylish and quite delightful. While I could've been tempted to gorge on it, I took my time and had a good two-thirds of the bottle left when I finished the steak, a sensible precaution when you're looking at a wine that hits the 16% alc/vol. This is a wine that could easily creep up on you.
I made that discovery after I'd retreated to the armchair in the office with the rest of the bottle and, quite honestly, was amazed when I sighted the figure on the back of the bottle. Based on this first taste, I'm looking forward to the next excuse to open one of these. If we had the cellaring space I could easily be tempted to invest in a dozen.
There's already a wonderful complexity to the wine and it'll only get better with time. As the title suggests, old growth dry-grown wines are where it's at.
