I got some old French stuff, which I bought in DC in 2002 or earlier. Hey, I'm old, so my wine is old! I shipped it out when I moved to Colorado 17 years ago. That's prelude to this:
Whenever I get ready to open one of my older bottles, I have learned to check cellartracker.com (actually, I just enter the complete name of the wine and the vintage, and it's one of the top search results). Anyway, no matter what bottle, there are always recent reviews from consumers who seem to know something.
E.g., I just opened a Chateau Grand-Puy-Lacoste 1995 (Bordeaux, from the commune of Pauillac). This is not a well-known chateau, although Pauillac is on the top of the heap, but there were still four helpful reviews from the last two weeks. Main message: decant for an hour or two to soften the tannins.
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013