Managing a wine cellar means keeping an eye on the expected life of the wine to insure that you don’t keep it so long as to be past it’s prime. I brought out a 2002 Peter Lehman and discovered to my shagrin that I had left it too long. So I went back to my inventory and reviewed the ones that might be past their prime and pulled them out for sampling. So you will be getting some reviews of some well aged wines. Hopefully not too well 🙂 So I bought this puppy at the winery in 2006 for $29.95. 30 Bench is my least favorite winery, not because of the wine but because of the snooty staff. On the positive side they are consistently snooty 🙂 When I bought this one it was a big boisterous typical Niagara Cab Franc. It needed some aging or some time in a decanter. So I decided to give this one another 5 years and decided now was the time for this special wine. 30 Bench use to make some higher end premium wine before they got visited by phylloxera and lost some of the oldest vines. This wine is dark in color with a little age showing around the edges of the glass, some browning. On the nose are some milder dark berry scents coming off … The cork was in good shape so all is looking well. On the mid pallet this wine displays tons of deep rich black berry flavors with alcohol noticeable. Clearly some time in the decanter is needed. It’s clear this wine still has some life left in it. Sadly I have no more … On the long meaty finish are some lovely tannins a beautiful dry pucker power. This wine has aged well. Some more time in the bottle would reward even more. I would give this a solid 90-91. Lovely wine.
