What a fun experiment!

Double date night, we brought the 2008, our friends brought the 2013.

Paired this with Indian food at Copra in San Francisco (which has a surprisingly solid wine list of their own). I know this subreddit doesn't like red wine and Indian food, but I love the pairing and it worked incredibly well.

Each bottle was decanted for an hour or more before bringing to the restaurant, then decanted again over a few hours. The 2008 probably got closer to five hours of air, the 2013 maybe got four.

Warmed up by having a bottle of Bourgogne, which was nice.

It's insane to me how different these wines were. If you told me these were different producers or even different regions, I'd believe you. 2008 felt more classic Napa, 2013 almost felt more Bordeaux.

The 2008 drank better out the gate, super high tannins, but also very complex fruit-forward notes.

After a few hours, the tannins really mellowed out and we picked up dark cherry, red plum, blueberry, rosemary, very few tertiary notes.

This probably hit its peak after three hours of air. Then we started to get more stewed fruit notes, but I preferred the fresh fruit on the palate.

2013 actually started out muted and flat. I was worried it was in a dumb phase.

Fortunately, time and air cured this.

2013 displayed a lot more tertiary characteristics, including tobacco, mushroom, and sunflower seeds.

The fruit felt almost hidden at first, but picked up dark cherry and stone fruit notes.

Next time I revisit this, I'd likely wait a few years or maybe decant for five hours before touching this.

Both wines were 93 points for now, but I think the 2013 likely has a lot more upside and can be a 95+ point wine.