Great Quote...

Take some time and listen to the "I'll Drink To That" podcast episode featuring Jeffrey Patterson, winemaker and owner of Mount Eden Vineyards. I love his approach to winemaking.

Today I drummed up this quote from him, and it struck me as incredibly true in light of the dinner we spent with friends last night. We drank a reserva Malbec which I had carried around Argentina for weeks looking for a place to ship a case home. Upon uncorking the 2011 Jose Luis Mounier Reserva Malbec, it was too bold and too tannic. Disappointing after telling a great story about the beautiful estate and the bottle's journey. But I loved how the wine opened up over the course of the next hours, and how as the tannins settled in my mouth, the flavors began to come through.

“Martin’s only mentor was this old-world Frenchman, Paul Masson. Wine in his world was not as it is today. Wine was fundamental, sometimes great, sometimes not-so-great. Paul Masson once said, ‘I don’t care how a wine tastes, I care about how a wine drinks.’ The meaning is that the last glass is the best glass – that wine should evolve over the course of an evening. This is meaningful because wine criticism today is only a brief sniff-sip-spit regimen. One cannot truly appreciate a wine’s true qualities and future potential without spending an evening with it. “

Jeffrey Patterson, Winemaker, Mount Eden Vineyards