1992 Cosentino Winery The Poet

I have to say, every time I drink one of Mitch’s “Poet”, I thoroughly enjoy it.  If you are not familiar with The Poet, the style of the wine is a Bordeaux Blend.

The first Poet Mitch created was in 1986.  My understanding is that this was the first wine that coined the term Meritage.  Meritage is a word developed by American winemakers to indicate a blend using traditional Bordeaux varieties.  Members of the Meritage Association require that red wines be made from Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petite Verdot and Malbec grapes, with no variety exceeding 90 percent of the blend.

To make things simple, Bordeaux is to French winemaking as Meritage is the American equivalent.

I have many different years of The Poet in my cellar including the first 1986 vintage.

Chris was craving Yellow Fin tuna for a couple weeks.  She decided to call our local grocery store who receives shipments every Wednesday.  As luck would have it, they just received a shipment of tuna from Argentina.  Had I not known where it came from, I might have whined about the price she paid for it.  She planned on marinating it and then grilling it slightly.

We had to pair the tuna with something really good.  I wandered down to my cellar trying to think what we would enjoy.  My eye immediately found itself looking at the Poets in my rack.  Perfect, now which one?  I have had some of the 1980’s vintages so thought lets give the ninety’s a try.

I decided on the 1992 Poet…

As I cut away the foil, the cork actually looked pretty good.  This is a twenty-year-old bottle and you never know.

It was time to get the corkscrew and pull the cork.  As I started to pull the cork out I knew immediately there was a problem.  The screw did not penetrate the whole cork.  Right where the screw ended in the cork it broke while pulling it out.

There is a lesson to be learned here.  On older bottles of wine, I should always use and “AH-SO“.  If you do not have one; buy one and use it!  If you are in a position where you do not have one, make sure you go all of the way through the cork and pull it very gently and slowly.

Because I couldn’t retrieve the rest of the cork, I ended up pushing the broken part back into the bottle.  Ok, now there was another variable I needed to worry about; the small broken pieces of cork floating in the wine.  I decided to grab my decanter and pour all of the wine into it.

The decanter does work great for bottle sediment but really not for the cork.  The small pieces of cork were still floating on the top.  I decided “what the hell, a little bit of twenty-year-old cork is not going to kill us”.  So I poured some wine into the glass.  I also wanted to mention there was little to no sediment on the bottom of the decanter when we poured the final glass.

Examining the Poet in the glass, you can see the center is still deep purple.  The meniscus was looking brown and the very edge was clear.  I was ready to give it a sniff.  As Chris and I started smelling the Poet, we identified the fragrance 0f plum and ripe fruit.  Chris was humming and ready to give it a try!  Tasting the wine I noticed that the tannins were very soft.  I could feel the light tannin’s in the front and moving to the middle part of my tongue.  The Poet had a very nice finish and had an excellent after taste.  Tasting the wine I could identify Bing Cherry and even a slight caramel finish.  We were quite pleased with the Poet.

As we ate our grilled Ahi tuna we noticed how the Poet and tuna paired each other excellent.  I know Chris will be mentioning this recipe and will recommend any Poet from Cosentino on her food blog.

We both gave the Cosentino Poet four glasses.

Life is too short to drink crappy wine.  Expand your palate and keep trying.

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