I wanted to go old school the other day and decided to pull out Scarola Vineyards 2002 Merlot from my cellar.

I don’t have too many old wines, because they don’t get a chance to hang around that long.  But when I visited with Frank Scarola a while back, he found a few of these laying around.

On the nose I was picking up Dried Cherry and raspberry.  There was a minty dried herbal note that was very nice to go along with a earthy note the evolved as it was in my glass

On the palate, there was alot less of the fruit, but a lot of some other qualities I have found in older wines.  There was some tobacco, cedar and a earthy woodsy, mushroom note at the end of the sip.  Hidden beneath all of this was some chocolate and dried cherry.

There was almost no trace of tannins and the acidity was very subtle.

The finish has a touch of smoke and vanilla.

One might say that this wine is past it’s peak or maybe at it’s peak.  I am not sure, I could not tell you.  But I did like how the fruit was present on the nose and not on the palate, all be it for the dried cherry.

I have one more bottle left and I would love to see where it is in a few years.