1989 Chateau Palmer and 1994 Ridge Montebello

We had our friends over for dinner. This dinner was our thanks to Barry for all the work that he is contributing to the land preparation. Barry is a meat and potatoes kind of guy, so in his honor, we thought that we would prepare steak and baked potatoes and serve it with two wines, a 1989 Chateau Palmer and a 1994 Ridge Montebello.

My husband usually brings the wine up from his cellar a day prior to when we will be serving it so that the chill can come off of the wine. This evening, we decided to decant both wines about an hour before the arrival of our guests. My husband had difficulty pulling out the cork. When he did, I had a taste of the Chateau Palmer and to me, it had some notes of volatile acidity (VA) and I was a bit worried. By the time we served the wines, however, whatever I had initially discerned from the aroma had blown off and the wine tasted wonderful. I found information regarding the blend on Chris Kissack's blogpost about Chateau Palmer. The 1989 is comprised of Cabernet Sauvignon 52%, Merlot 41%, Petit Verdot 6% and Cabernet Franc just 1%.

The other wine that we had with dinner was a 1994 Ridge Montebello. The label on the Montebello is very informative. This wine is Cabernet Sauvignon 73%, Merlot 15%, Petit Verdot 9%, and Cabernet Franc 3%. Also on the label is a description of the vintage. Since we did a side-by-side tasting, we could discern the differences in the flavor of the Chateau Palmer and the Montebello. Both wines were still drinking very well and could still stand to be cellared.
To learn more about Chateau Palmer, visit this comprehensive and informative blogpost written by Chris Kissack: Chateau Palmer.