Thanks again for all the kind words moonfriends.
Here is a list of the wines we tasted last night:
1- Chateau Traiment - A wine a few friends and I made from grapes that we had gotten from California, back in 1996. The name comes from my son's ability to merge words together to invent new ones. In this instance, it combines "Très" "vraiment" and "tellement" all meaning "a lot" or "very". The wine was still pretty good, we had added a lot of the seeds and a few of the branches to make sure it had a lot of tannins which is what helps a wine to age well. A bit thin though, and not very elaborate. But an excellent home-made wine that got compared to wines from Portugal! 13 points out of 20 (average)
2- Torres - Mas la Plana (2003) - Spain - Very good potential, will get better in the next 4-10 years. Lots of tannins, but the fruit is also present already so I should get another bottle and keep it. Spices, pepper, prunes, leather and cacao. 14.5/20
3- Grand vin de Chateau Latour - (1989) - Paulliac - Should have opened this before the Torres. Very good wine, well-balanced, pretty good intensity, but didn't really have anything to make it stand out like one would expect this wine to do. It should have been head and shoulders above anything we had but was just a very pleasant wine. A bit of spiciness, a bit of earthy smells, a bit of everything, really, but everything so well balanced that it failed to "wow" us. Too bad, but that happens... 14/20
4- Serego Alighieri Vaio Armarone - (1998) - Mmmmm... The perfect wine for me and to close out this tasting. Very intense nose, lots of falvours, spicy, fruity, very long aftertaste that had hints of mint, a very, very good wine. Will probably continue to improve. 18.5/20
I wanted to open a vintage Port to close out, but it was already 'round midnight on a monday night, so I decided to keep that one for when I retire
There were four of us, so you can imagine that getting up this morning was a bit of a drag. But it was worth it! My 50th birthday was one I will remember for a long time.
Hope this (too long) post didn't bore you too much.
In vino veritas!