2005 Maybach Family Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Materium

Fom 15 JAN at Blackbird Dining Establishment:

Knowing this wine needs some time, I popped and decanted this for 4 hours in the cellar, and then strained this with cheese cloth before returning it to the bottle and heading to dinner.  This wine had a lot of sediment in it, and I am glad that I decanted this ahead of time!  I was actually a bit shocked at how much sediment was on this wine for being so young.

This was the first of the '05's from our cellar that we've popped, though I have had this wine many times, along with the '06 and '07 at various events that we have attended.  Having both the '06 and '07 recently, I figured it was worth checking in on this wine again with a fairly agressive decant.  Maybach is one of the few must buys left on my "must buy" list, and one of the very few $100+ wines that I will be purchasing anymore.  This wine was released at $110.

We arrived at Blacking Dining Establishment, and I grabbed the Riedel Bordeaux/Cabernet glasses, and pulled the bottle from the carrying case and poured both of us a glass.  I proceeded to aerate the wine in the glass before first sip, and noticed a table with a decanter and a bottle of BV something or another.  Unfortunately, I never did get to see which wine it was, or what year it was.

This showed a gorgeous, dark garnet color in the glass, and I could smell the Maybach plain as day in the glass from a few feet away, with an absolutely intoxicating nose.  Wow this gorgeous!

Oodles and oodles of dark fruits here!  Gorgeous black currant and mocha dominate the nose here, but there is also some jammy black cherry, leather, and creamy sweet vanilla.  Finally, some herbacous and spicy notes round out the nose, and the wine smells rather large from the nose alone.

On the palate, the 4 hour decant did wonders for this wine, and I was absolutely correct in the fact that I figured this would show nicely right now.  More cassis on the palate with some black cherry, blackberry, rapberry, and black currants.  Some nice vanilla, butterscotch, and chocolate tones. 

The finish is very nice, and nicely integrated.  The tannins are present, and that is not a bad thing in the least.  The alcohol is nicely integrated as well, and there is barely any heat whatsoever.  All in all, a 4 hour decant with another 45 minutes in the bottle on the way to Blackbird did this absolute wonders!  This wine is big, and it was dranking incredibly given the decant.  It also paired perfectly with my rib eye, topped with freshly shaved truffle.

At the end of the evening, this wine was 96 points worthy, and I don't possibly see how this is not going to make our Top 10 of 2011 list.  If it doesn't however, I will hardly be disappointed, as that just means that we drank some damn nice vino in 2011!  Cheers!