“…like a Viennese waltz in my mouth…”

Thus read the words of CellarTracker.com member Kdawg, in his (her?) New Year’s Eve 2007 tasting note of a 1995 Château d’Yquem.  For those who don’t yet know about CellarTracker, it’s a veritable institution in the on-line wine world, offering on-line wine management and community tasting notes.  I mention this only because the community tasting notes on CellarTracker.com are widely regarded as being notoriously tough in their wine ratings (which are offered on the 100 point scoring scale). 

So it’s somewhat remarkable that the tasting notes available on CellarTracker.com for the `95 d’Yquem average a score of 94.45 (excepting an outlying blank anonymously submitted score of a 50 – including that would bring the average down to a 93).  The highest score offered was a 99/100.  Any way you slice the numbers, it amounts to praise of the highest order when it comes to the annals of CellarTracker.

At a Whole Foods wine bar in Virginia, I recently had an opportunity to try a glass of the `95 d’Yquem.  How was it?  Well, it was pretty f—king good.  More on that in a minute or two.  Or three.

Of course, it wouldn’t be 1WineDude article without a twist, and the sand-in-the-condom of this potential vintage d’Yquem advertisement is this:

If you paid $150 for a 375ml bottle, aren’t you predisposed to say that it’s great?  How much economic investment causes so much emotional investment that it clouds your judgment?  Could a hefty price tag perpetuate the hype of a wine’s awesomeness?…

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