Lebanon’s finest, notably improved since I last had
a bottle of this vintage a year ago. Volatile acidity, attenuated red fruit,
Worcester sauce, old wood, and animal hair come in a full-frontal blast. The
palate is a powerful mix of still quite sweet (pushing rotten) fruit, cutting
acid, and dusty wood.
Given space for a bit of breathing, there is rotten
apples, cinnamon, coffee and a clarifying note of cloves. (In the bottle I had
last year, the cinnamon was almost as strong as to evoke mulled wine; this
time, not so much.)
Last year’s bottle struck me as being like a mature
Californian Cabernet but I repudiate that comparison now; now it seems much
more like a particularly animalistic right-bank Bordeaux. The star vintage of
the 90s, in just ahead of the also excellent 1994. Keep.
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