Chateau des Deux Moulins 2001

This was a cheap Bordeaux, costing a mere $13.98. It is a Grand Vin de Bordeax from Medoc, with 12.5% alcohol. It is very dark, with a purple rim. On the first night I was, to put it mildly, unimpressed. The most obvious part of the nose was olives, maybe kalamata, strong and salty. It took a long time to find anything else, but eventually some burnt caramel and white pepper made an appearance. On the palate it improved a bit, but not much. The olives were still there, but here was also tar and pencil lead, violets and spearmint. Fruit remained elusive, but there was a tiny hint of fig. The tannins were not harsh, but that was about the kindest thing I could say.

Would this one be any better the second night? Let's find out, shall we?

This time around there are some florals on the nose, mostly geranium, perhaps a touch of violets, too. Hey, good news, there's fruit, too. Strawberries and raspberries, to be precise. On the palate, the kalamata returns. Fruit was there, but dry, very dry, like blackberry and plum skins, just skins. I did like the florals, mostly violets.

Conclusion? This is just not a great wine. It is, however, a much better wine on the second night than the first. Might this mean it is just very closed, that it might improve with a few years in the cellar? Sometimes a lot of improvement from one night to the next means just that. In this case, I suspect not. Night one this barely rated a "drinkable but who would want to" score, maybe a 78 on the 100-point scale. On night two it popped all the way up to an "adequate, but not inspired" score, about 83 points.