2001 Chateau D’Issan (Bordeaux – Margaux, France) –   When our twins were born back in 2004, my wife gave me a case of wine to celebrate, with the idea that we would drink one bottle every year around their birthday, and hopefully toast ourselves to a job well done.   I look forward to this tradition each year, and cooked a good steak dinner to enjoy this bottle with.  Now that the kids have turned 9, we only have a few more years before we’ll need to buy more “birthday” wine!

The wine had a deep red color, and there was nice spicy red fruit on the nose.  In the mouth, the combination of red/black fruits and subtle baking spices came through, with good acid keeping everything alive.  The sweet red fruit followed through to a nice medium to medium-long finish.  This was a better showing than the previous bottle 2-3 years ago, which was still somewhat closed in on itself.  This bottle was open for business and will have a great future over the next 10+ years.  (93pts.)

Cellar Gems are reviews of bottles aged in our cellar.