One of my better wine successes was when I purchased a couple of cases
of Milliman Cabernet-Malbec (Curico Valley, Chile) 1999 for $3.99 per
bottle. The wine had received pretty good reviews and this was when my
price point for wines was in the $12.00 range for a decent-to-good
bottle (price creep has moved this number up QUITE significantly!). For
the first year or so the wine was rough and tannic but also showed a lot
of fruit. After holding several bottles for a few years the wine
improved to the point of being really smooth and balanced.

I recently served a bottle of 1994 Pichon-Baron Puillac to some
wine-loving friends before dinner and followed this with a bottle of the
Milliman with dinner. You should have heard them rave about how
wonderful the $3.99 bottle was! Granted, a younger and fruitier wine is
going to make more of an impression on some people than a dry and subtle
Bordeaux, but the lesson for me was that it is possible to pick a young
wine and hold it with great success. This is an obvious fact that you
are all acutely aware of, but it was still exciting for me to experience
on my own.

My question involves a different wine. I have over 6 bottles of a
powerful wine from the Montsant region in Spain that are from the 1999
vintage. The fruit is excellent, but the tannins are pretty harsh and
somewhat bitter. I also have a case of the same wine from the 2000
vintage and the fruit is very similar, but the tannins are much gentler
although still too dominant. Both wines are already seriously dry.
Nevertheless, these wines are totally awesome with Spanish Valdeon Blue
Cheese!!!

1) If there is enough fruit (but not sweetness) in the wine, might the
tannins ever soften to the point that the wine will actually become
smooth?

2) Are some tannins just too strong to be overcome? Might the tannins
actually overtake the wine as the fruit fades?

3) This is a wine that causes me to loose a copious amount of epithelial
cells from my cheeks. Is this caused by the tannins?

Jonathan