Friday, December 28, 2007

Marynissen 2001 Gamay Noir

(Found – November 2007)

I remember putting this one away at the time of purchase, because Marynissen had been very liberal with their oaking of this wine and I thought it just might hold. When I found it a few months back I thought a "Gamay Noir? Oh boy ... I might be in trouble here." I pulled the cork and waited for the unpleasant gases to spew forth, good news - they did not; so the obvious next step was to pour. A slight browning of the edges was the first thing I noticed – not surprising in a 6 year old wine. Time to put nose to glass and that brought out some stink of epic barnyard proportions. Surprisingly it was only the smell that was off-putting it did not follow through on the taste (what I'll put in my mouth in the name of science) with mainly black fruit and cedar notes on the tongue. I decanted it to see if I could rid it of the stink and lo and behold it mellowed out quite a bit while the flavors were improved too. Lost + Found rating: MINOR TREASURE.

1 comment:

matthewjksullivan said...

Marynissen is a bit of a hidden treasure. I am not surprised that your 2001 Gamay Noir survived for 6 years because they seem to have a talent for making old world style wines that age gracefully. I recently posted my reflections on their excellent 2002 Merlot here. Cheers!

Matthew Sullivan
www.lawandstyle.ca/shortcellar