WINE =======: 1975 Christian Brothers Pinot Saint George
Tasting Date: 2006-12-24
Varietal    : Negrette
Score       : 82
Country     : USA
State       : California
Region      : Napa

Notes
-----
My aunt bought two bottles of this wine in 1975, and finally
decided to find out if it was still any good or not. This
was a real adventure; one of the bottles was leaking a bit,
but the other one's cork looked good. We opened the leaky
one first, assuming that it would be bad. Actually, it
turned out to be the better of the two. When we went to
remove the cork from the non-leaky one, the cork crumbled
badly and broke off half-way. We were able to pull out the
rest, but it also pretty much fell apart on removal. This
wine was more distinctly vinegary than the other one, so
we'll make our notes on the leaky bottle.

Its color is a bricky red, fading significantly towards the
edges, first an orangey red and then almost a
brownish-yellow, like dried mustard. The nose was muted,
with pencil shavings and muted berries. The flavor is rather
sharp and acidic, probably heading towards the land of
vinegar, but it's not there yet. This wine is definitely
past its prime, and who knows if this grape was ever
destined for long cellaring, but it's held up rather well
for a 30+ year old wine. I've had brand-new wines that
tasted worse. I won't exactly regret the lack of opportunity
to try this again, but it was interesting to see what can
happen to a wine over several decades...too bad it wasn't a
cab, because that might have been delicious.

Additional Notes
----------------
The wine type, "Pinot Saint Georges," is apparently a name given by
Christian Brothers to a fairly obscure varietal called Negrette. Back in
the 70's, it was not uncommon to make up fancy French-sounding names for
your wine to suggest quality. I read online that the Negrette is sort of
like a cross between Grenache and Sangiovese, but it was hard to tell with
this bottle.
Output generated by La Wine Club - http://LaWineClub.com/
=================