One of my all time fav wine shops for free tastings is stew leonards in farmingdale. They pour over 20 different wines a week and will often pour not only plonk. Got email this past week that due to crappy weather and such they were going to be opening their two "best" bottles on saturday between 1 and 3. Showed up at 1:45 and picked myself up off the floor at around 2:10 They cracked open a 05 Margaux (1000 retail 100pointer) and 05 d'yquem (850 retail 97 pointer) Being that 05 is wedding year I happen to own one of these two beuts (never tried it before yesterday however).
Will post notes but gotta say the Margaux was very tight and closed (decanted at 9 am placed back in bottle around noon for the pouring) no sign of any age in glass, deep dark purple color, hint of berry. The desert wine could be a tad cooler (Was room temperature-ish) lots of fresh melon/citrus on nose and taste.
The bottle I have will not be opened for at least another decade.

I rarely go there. What type of glass did you taste the wine from? Don't tell me it was a medicine cup! Very generous of them to open those wines.

they have decent (libby(or libby styled) 7 oz wine glasses with dishwasher on site.
I did not bring in my own stems (I keep a box of 36 elemental capri 7oz white wine tasting glasses in trunk quite often due to my tasting club) as it does bring a tad more attention to me then I like and I have used there stems for so many years my senses and semi calibrated to them (the libby and elemental's are very similar in size/shape/etc)

why are you up btw? I have a dog, 21 month and I wanted to finsh last nights wine that I left in decanter lol. My wife got these HUGE cuts of T bone from bj's yesterday so I had to match em with a big ol cab sav.

quote:

Originally posted by Board-O:
Don't tell me it was a medicine cup!

Funny you mention this. I had my first ever tasting of a Krug Grand Cuvee NV out of one of these yesterday at a very good store here in DC. Clearly not in the same class of wines as the Margaux or Yquem but i did find it odd given the store quality.

very generous offer by the store. That type of generosity would certainly earn my business.

Sounds like they did it to "push back" against Sandy and her friend Athena. Life is too short to drink bad wine and all that.

Either that, or the store lost power and these bottles were cooking somewhere for a week.

no wine cooked in proper storage during storm period in the 40-55 degree weather imho. It was done as a nice gesture and a "push back"

Good to hear. This store deserves some business!

dropped a few dollars today when I was there. Thanked manager and made him aware of this thread.