The 2005 Grand Mayne has been uncorked and other news...

[Racer Chris]

...for an ‘Ayrton Senna’ - £9.99 to be precise.
...

Care to fill in some meaning on this?


WRT Grand Mayne, I drank a couple bottles of 2008 several years ago which were pretty good.

[Comte Flaneur]

...for an ‘Ayrton Senna’ - £9.99 to be precise.
...

Care to fill in some meaning on this?

Having lived in the U.K. Jacques will know and explain …


WRT Grand Mayne, I drank a couple bottles of 2008 several years ago which were pretty good.

[Chateau Vin]

...for an ‘Ayrton Senna’ - £9.99 to be precise.
...

Care to fill in some meaning on this?


WRT Grand Mayne, I drank a couple bottles of 2008 several years ago which were pretty good.

Isn’t it a British slang for ten pounds???

[jal]

...for an ‘Ayrton Senna’ - £9.99 to be precise.
...

Care to fill in some meaning on this?


WRT Grand Mayne, I drank a couple bottles of 2008 several years ago which were pretty good.

Isn’t it a British slang for ten pounds???

Yes, Senna rhymes with tenna, tenna or a tenner is £10

[Racer Chris]

:groan:

[jal]

:groan:

I hear you, but that was happening before his crash. It wasn't meant to be disrespectful.

[Comte Flaneur]

Well done CV and Jacques, yes was not meant to be disrespectful Chris.

[Racer Chris]

I suppose ten pounds was worth more in the 1990s

[AKR]

I used to work with an *American* (who lived in Hartsdale, jal) who the bank had stationed in the London office for too long. He was greatly afflicted with all those rhyming habits Comte alludes to. Every night as he prepared for the train ride, he would announce 'off to the trouble and strife' which meant his 'wife'. There was a gigantic suite of these odd expressions.

[Musigny 151]

I Adam and Eve that you are elephant’s trunk and your loaf of bread is filled with pony and trap.

[jal]

I Adam and Eve that you are elephant’s trunk and your loaf of bread is filled with pony and trap.

Ok, that one is above my pay grade

[Musigny 151]

Not directed at anybody.

I believe you are drunk and your head is filled with crap.

I put it through a translator to see if it does Cockney to English. They went Spanish on me

Yo Adán y Eva que sois trompa de elefante y vuestra barra de pan está llena de pony y trampa.

[JimHow]

Do we agree that 2005 Grand Mayne is a soft wine, drink up, not gonna get better?
Has this estate ever produced anything worthwhile other than the stunning 1998 and not quite as great but still good 2000?
This property on the right bank reminds me a little of GPL on the left, ie, we know the potential is there, but not living up to its terroir.

[marcs]

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marcs motivated me to pull a 2000 Grand Mayne [St Emilion] as mentioned upthread, and this has been delightful the last two days. In casita AKR, this is a nice weekend wine beyond midweek kitchen quaffers so I feel the older wines are worth polishing glasses and the contemplation of decanting. In the end I decided to just pour it through a Vinetto on the first night, and allow the natural breathing of the half empty bottle for the second night. The bouquet is complex: fennel, iodine, seaweed leading into a palate that is on the plummy side. Depending on how sensitive one is to sur maturite, maybe one might find prunes on the palate too (I thought there were hints of it on the second night). There is fruit depth here, far more than some more stern 2000's I've had in recent years. The tannins have melted away, and the acidity is aligned with the fruit but it drinks very well on its own. The texture is of a mature full bodied wine which has shed its precipitates, so no chewy youthfulness, but it does not yet 'glide' like the elite finesse right bank wines. This would have been a very fun rhubarb flavored wine to discuss with the BWE West Coast cadre since it seems like so many of them have a long history with the property. Tough wine to grade: for my tastes it sits at that cruel knifepoint between a B+ and A-, but I'm sure I would have notched it higher five years ago. I don't see it fading at all, but unless there is a compelling reason (one of those long planned but never consummated verticals, year of significance, Voodoo curse etc.) consider bumping the 2000 up in the drinking queue.

Having a 2000 Grand Mayne with dinner right now, and wow is it good. Unfortunately I have a slight cold/case of the sniffles so some subtleties are lost on me, but I can tell that the texture and smoothness are excellent and it has classic soft merlot flavors with nothing overdone. Body is just the right weight for an aged Bordeaux, not too heavy and not too light. No fireworks but so comfortable and well done, like perfect slippers or a well worn baseball glove. Not like an OFFICIAL 95 POINT WINE but just such a perfect Tuesday night aged Right bank Bordeaux

Excellent description! You nailed it exactly - it is robust, deep, and smoothed out with age but lacks elite finesse. The pluminess/ very slight touch of prune speaks to its depth without being offensive or too heavy. To me the 2000 really scratched my itch for a traditional right banker with just enough but not too much of a rustic quality.

[Comte Flaneur]

Der ner….

This has been sitting in a friends cellar for about a decade. Just popped it. I will report back.

[JimHow]

Looking forward to your results, Comte, I’ve had mixed results with that wine.

[Comte Flaneur]

So this is a pretty simple wine with humble roots.

Jim you mention the 1998 as perhaps the high water mark for this estate? I think I tried one or two. This estate came on my radar in the early 1990s when the then ubiquitous U.K. retail chain Oddbins used to sell it the 1989 and 1990 for an ‘Ayrton Senna’ … a tenner, £10, £9.99 to be exact. A wine you could drink with the trouble’n’strife (…wife...) on a weeknight after you put the sauce-pan lids (…kids…) to bed. They were great at that price and drank well after a few years…there was no need to wait on them.

I think that background is important. This is not Figeac, Canon or Troplong Mondot. Is it at the Corbin level? I don’t think so. The 2005 is quite a big corpulent wine. The abv is 14.5%. Iirc the 2010 weighed in at a super heavyweight 15.5%. Yikes! This wine is characterised by a lush entry with jammy red fruit and menthol. But it has no complexity and is rather simple, boring, and becomes an ordeal after you get past the half way through the bottle mark. I suspect that the best time to drink this would have been a decade or so ago. But it is not falling apart either.

[AKR]

1990 was a lovely Grand Mayne.

[JimHow]

Yeah, that sounds about right, jammy, nothing special. Flabby.