[written in 2012]

This is wine that I had originally bottled exclusively for the French Laundry, in the spring of 2006. I was still learning about microbial stability. And this wine did not have it. TFL returned all 45 cases that I had bottled for them. I have kept the wine on my side porch in Napa for 6 years, without the heart to destroy it. I had not quite grasped the good sign that the bottles had stopped leaking years ago.

The wine finished a tiny malo-lactic fermentation in bottle-- at TFL! That was years ago, and now the wine is quiet and mature. I served it at the first Metaphysical Lecture, expecting the wine to be (perhaps painful) instance of spoilage. But it is not! the wine is very good-- much more than interesting. The wine consists of 2002 cool climate Cabernet  [from vines that no longer exist] passed over the grapes and stems of 2005 Hudson Syrah, post fermentation, but while there was still just a little sugar left in the grapes. The 2005 wine refermented the 2002 cabernet; the 2005 malo is what finished in bottle.