Just had a bottle of 1999 Pine Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley-Rutherford. As an everyday type wine, I loved it. Here’s the brief review I wrote for CellarTracker.com:
Nose: Rich, deep candied fruit with cherry, toasted <something>.
Taste: Still has plenty tannins, nice deep fruit . Finish is unfortunately short.
Crystals on cork, sediment has formed. Overall – I think this wine has help up very well. Will be drinking remaining 3 375ml bottles over the next 1-2 years at most though.
Overall very enjoyable and just what I was looking for tonight.
This is a 1999 wine; not one that I expected (at least by me) to age too well much past 6 or 7 years, so I was pleased that it wasn’t old and decrepit. Don’t get me wrong – at this point you probably don’t want to run out and try to buy a bottle of this. For one thing – this has been in my cellar at 55 degrees and it’s unlikely that most places you would buy this from would store it under these conditions. And secondly, this is not a spectacular wine for what you would probably have to pay for it if you could find one that was stored properly. But:
A) It was great considering the $11.99 I paid per 375ml bottle back when I bought it, and
B) I couldn’t have just gone to a local store and bought an equivalently mature bottle. at least not for anywhere near the price, and again, not stored under the same conditions which would have introduced a lot of risk into the purchase.
So bottom line, I was able to have an above average drinking experience at a below average cost. Having a place to store even slightly above average bottles of wine under ideal conditions will pay dividends even without spending lots of money on every bottle of wine you store. Of course I do have some very nice bottle in the cellar, but it’s far from full and so I’ll be continuing to mix in some slightly above average bottles to keep my inventory of ready to drink, everyday wines at a good level.