Landskroon - Merlot 2005 (South Africa)

Was just going through the wines that I have at home one day and decided that I will open up this bottle of Merlot since I was going to have a dinner with several red meats. You know what they say,"Red wines are for red meat and white wines are for white meat...". So i decided to go with this old adage and open up a red Merlot for this dinner.

People always say that the longer you keep the wines the better they taste (another age-old adage which I wonder if its true, come back another day when i bust this myth!). So... 2005, 4 year old wine, should be a good catch there. I probably got this bottle from DFS when I came back from some overseas trip.

At first sniff, it has a very nice fragrance. You can almost smell the grapey-ness in it. I read the label behind it and it says that it was supposed to have a tinge of oak spiciness in it. However, I did not detect that, could be a result of my poor storage of the wine or simply the label was exaggerating.

Given the lack of that oak fagrance in it, it was still generally a good fruity wine with slight tanin in its after taste. On the label, it also mentioned that it was ready for consumption now, but would improve if kept for several years. At this point, I was devastated, I think I might have caused the degardation in the wine with my poor storage condition. I need to work on my storage system for my wines, but that is for another day (but then again it might be some cheap wine I got from NTUC... Shrugs).

Despite the initial devastation of the degradation this fine bottle of wine, it was generally a very pleasant red Merlot that would go well with most meaty meals.

Not too acidic or too sweet, the tanin after taste was not too strong to put me off (but remember to keep it chill given the hot weather in Singapore). I would rate this wine:

Fragrance: 8/10
Taste: 6/10 (After my poor storage conditions, may be higher if kept well)
After-taste: 6/10
Value-for-money: ?? (Forgot the price)

Final words: Good wine to go with a hearty meal, but definitely not suitable if you are looking for one for easy-drinking.

P.S. This is the first entry for this blog and is hastily put together. Thus do come back soon as the rating system would be improved and vaious factors will be added to the rating system again. In the mean time, readers, you might like to tell me what you look for in a good wine and what factors should be rated! :)