1997 Verget Meursault, Burgundy, France

Drinking good wine requires patience. It's easy to grab a bottle of this or that at the local wine shop, and that's what most of us end up doing... convenience and all of that. To purchase an amount of wine with the goal of essentially hiding it somewhere dark and closet-like for some amount of time (usually measured in years) requires more of the mindset of a planner, of a schemer. This is something that I used to be way, way better at than I am now. I had a lot more time to research my purchases and carefully plan what I might like to be drinking ten years into the future. Now is when I begin to reap the benefits of the work of my past self. Ten years was like ten lifetimes ago.

And yet, here we are with a wine that has been waiting patiently, waiting quietly for its chance to impress me. A wine that was a bit of a gamble to wait on... 1997 Burgundian Chardonnay could have gone either way. So, this being the last of this wine... the remaining orphan, we brought it up and cooled it down, preparing it for its time.

In the glass this wine was a really unique straw yellow color, almost disconcertingly so. These days we're not used to drinking well aged white wine (though we certainly try...), and age tends to alter white wines in distinctly interesting ways. So the color was this straw yellow, pale and just slightly tinged with brown. The nose was amazing. It was full of lime and grapefruit at the beginning, and balanced by fragrant floral and a little vanilla towards the end. The palate was equally interesting, with more citrus and a great limestone base with richer honey and something we can only describe as freshly cut grass. This wine tasted like what freshly cut grass smells like in the summer. It was really good. Nice, lingering finish, but not cloying in any way. This is one of the first whites that we brought out and chilled in preparation for the advent of warmer days, which are quickly making inroads here now, and it is immensely rewarding to have a wine around for so long and be able to really enjoy it.

I have to say that in all reality, though, that 1997 just does not seem that long ago. That worries me somewhat.

cost - $29.99

winecommando rating (1-10) - 9