Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Cave Spring 1997 CSV Estate Bottled Chardonnay

Found June 2011

It's not often that you get a chance to talk with the winery owner a few days after trying a bottle of his wine, but that is just what happened here:  I tried this bottle on a Sunday and (by happenstance) was speaking with Tom Pennachetti about it the following Friday.  My findings on this wine were very poor, but there were a lot of unknown factors to me before I acquired this bottle.  It was given to me by a friend who `found` it their basement.  The friend in question did not have proper storage for the bottle and has moved a number of times in the interim.  Needless to say the bottle was questionable at best.  I opened this bottle up with a number of wine-loving friends and they were excited to sip on a bottle of 13 year old Ontario Chardonnay.  The cork was crumbly and ended up falling into the bottle, after filtering enough of it out to get a proper sample we found the smells and flavours to be off-putting, tertiary in nature with little sign of fruit; there was some butterscotch and vanilla notes but it all got lost in the heavy oxidative and maderized flavours of the wine.  When I told this to Tom he said he had tried a bottle not too long ago and his experience had been much better, but then again (he pointed out) his bottle had been kept under pristine cellaring conditions. A bottle this old will show signs of its adventure to your glass, and this one`s adventure was dodgy at best.  Lost & Found Rating:  Trash (though possibly not the wines fault)