Last night, after a topsy-turvy day of canceled dinner invitations and
re-invitations, Andrew ended up going over to a friend's house for a
sleepover and Jean and I had dinner at home to celebrate our 23rd
anniversary the following day (i.e., today). For dinner, I cooked a
roast leg of lamb and sauteed locally grown asparagus with late-season
(this year) morels from Minnesota. With this, I opened a wine from the
year of our marriage, the 1989 Ch. Beaucastel Chateauneuf-du-Pape.

Our second (and last) bottle of this, when opened it revealed some
maderization on the nose, indicative of some heat damage somewhere in
the transport chain (not unheard of in this era for Ch. Beaucastel).
That did abate with time and what remained was a remarkably fresh wine,
tasting of cherries and only a slight hint of meat/game with very fresh
acidity. It had thrown a bucketload of sediment, but a decant did
wonders for this wine. Quite tasty with dinner, but not nearly as
awe-inspiring as the earlier bottle, alas.

Mark Lipton