Grgich Hills Merlot

Grgich Hills Merlot – 2002

 

Crazy story about a bottle of wine that is way outside of my usual “Affordable Wine Snob” price range (and one you’re probably never going to find anyway).  A friend had several bottles of wine displayed in her dining room as décor.  She doesn’t drink wine and never thought about opening them.  She said a couple were gifts but she didn’t really remember where they came from, other than they’ve been in her house for years.

She decides to change around her décor and gives me the bottles of wine.  I didn’t expect anything from the bottles.  A 2002 wine that has been stored on a wine rack in a dining room for an undetermined number of years can’t possibly be any good, right?  (Huge thanks to a friend of mine that warned me to at least try it before it goes down the drain.)

I open the bottle on a Sunday evening, expecting it to be bad.  Instead of a brown wine, it pours a nice brick red.  I’m intrigued and more than a little surprised.  I smell.  Hints of oak and lots of fruit.  Now I’m even more interested.

I taste.  Light oak.  Loads of cherry and raspberry.  The most rounded mouthfeel I can remember tasting any time recently.  By some miracle, this bottle aged beautifully outside of a proper wine cellar.  (Subsequently, this winery is now on my “must visit if I ever make it to Napa” list.)  Wanting to share the bottle, I call one of my wine buddies and tell her to come over.

There’s no real moral to today’s blog other than to take the time to enjoy the surprises when life tosses them you’re way.  Sadly, I know I’ll never find another of these bottles, but I’m grateful for the one that I had.  I’m more grateful I had a wine friend I could appreciate it with.