Wine Snobery

Our friend Rob just blew into town with the carnival. Actually its the state fair. But I love referring to him as a carny only because he's so not. Doesn't fit the bill one bit. Rob works concessions with an outfit called Butcher Boys out of Rhinebeck, NY (Chris's home town). He spends every summer traveling the east coast slinging sausage and peppers, London broil sandwiches and chicken pitas to all the finest state fair goers from NY to NC . The last stop, Raleigh NC in October. While I'm sure its no picnic for his girlfriend back home in Utah it affords us our yearly Rob fix, which is always nice. The past couple of years when he has come out to the house for dinner he has brought with him a nice bottle of wine.
Now, nice bottle of wine is a relative term. If you ask my parents or a select few others in my family they will tell you, with conviction, that I am a wine snob. I, however, believe this to be very untrue. I am a novice. I know very little about wine. In the grand scheme of the wine world, I know nothing. None the less I bear the credentials to be a certified wine snob simply because I believe that wine from a box should not be consumed. Period. OK well, the only exception is, of course, if you are making a reduction sauce and you haven't any wine left in the bottle. Then and only then can wine from a box be used. Apparently this offends their sensibilities because my parents travel with their box wine in tow. His and Hers Franzia (I don't know those people but that picture concisely depicts how I feel about the stuff).


So back to Rob. This year the bottle wasn't so nice. But the wine inside, Oh the wine inside would turn any self respecting beer drinker into a wine snob. Here is the part where I would normally rattle off the name, varietal and perhaps the year. But I can't do that because this bottle was SO old, (how old was it) that the label had been lost in its travels only to be replaced by the dust and dirt from years sitting in an old wine cellar. Rob tells me that the gentleman who gave him several of these beauties suggested this was a 50 to 75 year old bottle.
The foil capsule as well as the cork still had, what I assume to be, the winery name: Mis En Bouteille Au Chateau. Surprisingly the cork came out in one piece! After a quick wipe of the bottle rim we got down to decanting. Whether this was necessary or not, I have no idea. But we received a beautiful decanter for a wedding gift and I hadn't had a reason to use it yet so we decanted. Then we ate, drank and were generally merry.
I wish I could say that the stars aligned for me and I serendipitously made a roast or steaks or even pasta with red sauce. Nope, I made chicken with sweet potatoes. Actually it was really much better than I just made it sound but this post is about the wine, not the food that didn't go very well with the wine. Although after a glass no one really cared about that.
I can't describe the color anymore than to say it was a deep red, very rich looking and the bouquet, meh, it smelled like wine. But, the taste was smooth and fruity with a bit of spice like a Merlot. It finished with a robust kick of tannin, the way a Cab does. It pinches you on the inside of your cheeks if you smile too much. I love that.
If I had to guess, which is what I'm doing here I'd say it was a Bordeaux (See, see what I did there? I used what little information I had from the wine bottle paired with the characteristics of the wine to make an educated guess). Of course I'll never know and that may drive me a little crazy for the next few days but hey, we all have a little OCD in us, right? Too bad there isn't any of that wine left- that would certainly help dull the nag of the unknown.