You never know what a good Bordeaux can do.  It can open up and be something of alchemy, transcending its normal cépage blend.  It can have a completely different character, be completely interesting, do things strange and unexpected and good.  Something off the charts.  Strange, UFO-like.

The 2009 Lirac, Reserve Saint Dominique,  has finally opened up.  It's been open three days at least, three nights in the refrigerator, and it just toning down its fruitiness to reveal its underlying pillars of resin and smoke, fog and mists that are smoke, strong thick stemmed herbs, young tiny stalked tree saplings,  truffle routines...  my god, this is a good wine!  Eric Bonnet, raised to tend the vines, care for the vine stock the whole way through life and death, as he put it to me once, raised by, to, his father, a vigneron, excellent... Thank you.