Verloren

I always think of the word "accessible" when I think of a wine that would appeal to the masses. With that definition, this may be the least accessible wine I've ever tasted. The story of this wine is that some barrels of merlot were forgotten (lost = verloren in Dutch) and the result is a wine with 2.5 years on new French oak. As a small-batch whisky drinker, I'm always amazed at the unpredictable things wood can bring to a whisky and this is certainly the case here with this wine. We let this one breathe for a couple of hours after opening, and the oak was pervasive and in the words of my drinking partner, offensive. That said, I soldiered on and trying it at intervals over the course of a full day, I found myself liking it more and more. The ever-present oak seems to give the fruit a dried-out quality here so the black fruit is almost raisin-y. To me, the spice character is baking spice, eucalyptus, and maybe the umami of a soy sauce, but you could certainly spend hours exploring this. The tannin and wood perhaps take away from any brightness of the fruit, but we're still reminded of that black fruit on the nose of every sip. This is certainly not for everyone and the tingling tongue that I feel may in fact be for just a select few, but what this is certainly not is a shitty misintegration. For pairing, I may reach to the moistest of chocolate cake or a handful of tamari almonds to try and pull out that soy sauce note. A very interesting accident.