For the most part when we buy a wine, it is normally meant to be enjoyed today or within the following few days, but there are times that we might purchase a particular wine with the intention of it being allowed to age. Sometimes that wine we buy for today we simply fall in love with it to the point we begin looking at it as a wine we want to allow to age and this of course entails another trip to the store to buy another bottle. There is a wide spread belief that all wines improve with age, but is that true? That is one of the questions being asked here as I start off today's wine review. For those of you who do not know the answer to the question, it is no, not all wines improve with age. I guess two great follow up questions would be, which wines do improve with age and how can I be reasonably sure that a wine I choose will improve? The simple answer to the first question is that there is no guarantee that any wine will improve with age even in the short term of just a couple of years. The answer to the second question is that there are a couple of things we can look for in a wine that might gives us some clues as to a wines aging ability. High tannins & acidity are two notes that we should look for when shopping for a possibly cellar worthy wine.
Usually if a wine is overly forward in these two areas, the wine will hold up over time and sometimes even improve (age). Of course storage conditions will also play an important part in preserving and therefore extending the life of a wine as well and I would think that any buyer of an age-able wine would also have a special area set aside to ensure their wines stay away from heat and remain at a proper storage temperature while also avoid light and humidity as these are four big enemies of wine preservation in general. While we have all heard of wines aging for years in caves in the French country side or in the basement of a famous Napa Valley winery/home, can wine that the average person afford age well? The answer to that question is yes, it absolutely can. "What prompted these questions?", you might ask is that today, I am going to be reviewing a very old wine and I am really curious to know if it is still able to be enjoyed. I want to know if it has held up, if it aged well over time. Occasionally I will open a wine that has a few years on it but very seldom will I review anything like today's wine. Honestly, I don't even know how this wine made it into the "good stuff" cellar to begin with. Alright, enough talking, I need to taste this wine.....now.
So the wine was (eventually) opened and I was able to pour a small amount into my glass in order to quickly determine whether or not I needed to dump it out as I was near a sink anyway. The second option was to take it to my chair and review it. Now, notice I used the word "eventually" because as I went to attempt to remove the cork, I Immediately ran into an issue that many of you guys I am sure have experienced especially if you have had older wines. It seems that while trying to remove the cork, half of it decided that it wanted to stay in the neck of the bottle. Now I was left with a decision to make, do I just throw this aged bottle of wine away or do I simply take something and push the cork down into the wine itself? My decision, based upon the age of the wine and the fact that I wanted, no, needed to fully taste and review it was the latter choice and so I went ahead and pushed the cork down into the wine. I am not going to disclose how the wine tasted here as I want to tease you and make you wait. Right now instead, I am going to try to try and find out some specs on the wine and talk about them. By the way, if you skip ahead, I will know and the wine review gods will get you :)
As I begin this paragraph let me first tell you that today I am reviewing the 1998 BV Cabernet Sauvignon - Coastal. From what I am seeing online the wine sold for $16.99 retail at its release but I bought the wine from the actual winery and I have no idea what I paid for it as it has obviously been a while. To my surprise, as I did some further searching online, I actually found that the wine IS available for $40 here (
https://www.tcwc.com/1998-Beaulieu-Vineyard-Cabernet-Sauvignon-Coastal-750ml). Unfortunately the only other thing I can tell you about the specs of the wine is that alcohol wise it comes in at 13.5%.
Let me very quickly now talk about the label on this bottle. I have to say that I do like this label and think it is well designed and the fonts chosen are pretty nice. I especially like the ripped appearance that is used on the bottom of the label as well as where the name of the winery is placed.
Now.....let's get into the wine itself by first starting on the nose. Right up front I am getting a rather nice Bing cherry note here. This note is amazingly still vibrant, certainly rather compelling & fresh smelling on the nose. I am also getting a nice bit of Black Pepper spice that simply won't quit here as well as some cocoa and I have to tell you that overall, the wine is really smelling delicious. On the end of the nose and kind of deep inside the bouquet is the slightest bit of oak that is presented in such a way that it obviously isn't trying to overpower the rest of the nose but instead aims at presenting just enough to push the wine along. Topping off the bouquet is a bit of smoke that integrates nicely with all of the other notes that I am picking up. As I wrap this section up, I have to say that as far as the nose is concerned, the wine is at this point at least, not raising any concerns but rather the opposite which is tremendous hope.
It is now time to finally really taste this old wine but I have to tell you beforehand, that I am not really expecting much to be left of it. While I was happy with the small initial tasting I did, I am still not convinced that I will be able to enjoy this wine and as a matter of fact, I am still prepared to pour the wine down the drain. This is really based upon the the fact that the wine is old and the "Coastal" label is the wineries least expensive label. There is something really strange about the Coastal line of BV (
https://www.bvwines.com/) wines and that is there is no mention of the product line on their website. Well folks, here goes the tasting. Guys, so I just took the first real sip of the wine and I have to tell you something. I really wish you could taste this wine yourself as I feel that the things I am about to say you might find rather difficult to believe, I know I would. I promise you guys that my description of what I tasting is accurate as I have no skin in this game and even if I did, that is not how I get down. To begin with here, I want to let you know that there is still some really nice acidity that is being presented by this wine, and I do mean really nice. After all these years the acidity of the wine simply has not skipped a beat, it truly rocks. Following up on the acidity, the wine also
still possesses some finely grained tannin's as well. The tannin's are still effective and only add to the taste and power that the wine still, amazingly possesses. Can you believe this? You asked what? How can a wine that was most likely probably never meant or designed to last this long still have tannins and still be exhibiting great acidity to it? Well guys, let's talk for a minute.
The answer to that question is....I really don't know. I hope that answer satisfies you because that is really all I can tell you.You can either call it luck or winemaker skill. Next up, I have a question for you guys. Would you love some spice in the wine? Because if you do, you are in luck. Guys, there is some serious Black Pepper spice that carries over from the bouquet and is really being shown off by this wine, it also is probably as fresh as the day the wine was created. Between the acidity, tannins & the spice, I am really in awe as to how the wine was able to stand up after all this time. Next up here on the palate are notes of both blackberry and black cherry which both come rushing in next and they are both fresh and vibrant and give this wine a dark fruit boost which pushes this lovely wine over the top in my book. Everything about this wine is fresh, vibrant and ready to take on the world or in this case, your palate. Right now my mouth is jumping with a super liveliness that can only be described as thrilling. On top of all of this is a note of blueberry and it also is just as lively and thrilling as the other notes are. This blueberry does manage to bring along some sweetness along with it so the next potential issue/question would be to ask is the wine is an overly sweet or (oh no) jammy wine? My answer to that is no to both. The wine is thankfully neither what I would consider to be overly sweet nor is it jammy, thankfully. These last few notes simply bring about an added bit of livelyness and also a structured robustness to the wine.
Is there too much sweetness in general that the wine puts across? I don't think that is the case as the sweetness presented seems very limited in it's ability to express itself which is good. Another aspect of the blueberry note that you will notice is that it also adds just a bit of richness, perhaps just a bit more than enough to be tasted but I found myself actually appreciating this bit of richness as I felt it did its job but thankfully, did not go overboard in that area. Alright guys, I have two more notes to throw at you and those notes are of cassis & semi-ripe plum. The cassis still puts a nice coating on the tongue along with those tannin's which has me sitting back in my chair in amazement as to how this wine has held up so incredibly. As for the plum note, it also works hand in hand with the other dark fruit notes to create a very well crafted Cabernet Sauvignon that I am glad I did not miss out on. The plum does not bring anymore sweetness to the wine and instead comes across semi-ripe but yet flavorful. As far as the oak I got on the nose goes, it is tasted in the wine but as it did on the nose, it doesn't fight to be upfront, it is happy just being noticed and I think you will be happy with that as well. Okay guys, it is time to get to my conclusion of this review and also give the wine my rating.
As I go ahead and complete this review, I will let you know that it really bothered me that the BV Coastal lineup of wines is not on their page so I contacted the winery itself via e-mail and was gotten back to by Mr. Ben Mason who is the Hospitality Sales Manager of Beaulieu Vineyard and he informed me that the BV winery no longer makes the Coastal line of wines. Some further research showed that while the BV winery is owned by Treasury Wine Estates, so is the label of BV Coastal which is now called Coastal Estates (
https://www.tweglobal.com/sitemap).
I was also informed by Mr. Mason that the winemaker for this wine is Jeffrey Stambor who was the wineries (BV) winemaker till 2016. This completely explains why and how this wine is doing what it is doing. I still stand by my belief that this wine was not designed to still be presentable after this many years but when your winemaker is as great as Mr. Stambor is, it is hard to create a simply decent wine when you are use to creating great wines. On The Desert Wine Guy rating scale, I am giving this wine 94 points. I completely enjoyed this wine and thoughts of purchasing the wine for $40 are really running through my head. My recommendation to you is to buy a bottle of the wine and either enjoy it now or hold onto it because there is no sign of the wine going bad anytime soon.
The Desert Wine Guy
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