I was culling through some wines in my cellar and came upon a couple
of bottles of 1997 Bonny Doon Le Cigare Volant which is Randall
Grahm's hommage to CNP. The wine was bought on release and stored at
55F. It's a blend of Grenache, Syrah, Cinsault and Mourvedre although
any resemblence to CNP is purely accidental. I recall drinking the
wine on release and enjoying the California fruit flavors that
reminded my more of Village Beaujolais than CNP. The synthetic cork
was a fairly thin plasctic affair that slid out of the bottle with
ease. The cork was saturated about 50% of it's very short length with
deep pruple residue. After the initial bottle funk blew off the wine
still had a pronounced,stemmy, funky green smell that reminded my of
rotting grass clippings. In the glass the wine was a cloudy medium-
light red with a brickish cast. Flavors were of bitter grape skins
(there was a serious amount of residueclinging to all sides of the
bottle) and old apples. Clearly past it's prime the wine was still
fiercly tannic which is not something that I remembered from it's
youth. Not sure if this was a cork failure (I opened the remaining
three bottles to the same result) or if it was just not made to last.
I did taste a few hours later and again this morning and the wine
still had a bitter tanninc funk to it. NR