Good wine weekend :).
One of my favourite CA sweet wines when we first had it ('96, I think?), this turns out to have aged gloriously. Overwhelmingly floral, to me prompting thoughts of hibiscus but I'm not a flower guy :). More powerful than when young, smoother but lost nothing in complexity or length, refreshing while still intense. Really very good - glad we have more. Opened somewhat unlikely-ly (yuk, sorry) to go with or (we thought more likely) after Chicken Tikka Masala, which turned out to be an unexpected pleasure of a match. This was a really pleasant way to end the day: A (stealing Dale's scale). I think this was $11 back then, and it lists for ~$15 now. For us, novices at any storing of wine long-term, this was an eye-opening experience.
On Sat we made a rare foray into NYC and had lunch at Chanterelle. Didn't really live up to my expectations: the high points were sublime, but it was a lot more inconsistent than I expected. No worries - we had very good friends and lots of time. The four of us had a variety of choices, but tending toward the rich/heavy (the lamb, which would have been potentially the gamiest, got sent back(!) though). Anyway, the point of this was to note that we drank the 2001 Mara Napa (Marquise Reserve) Zin which was full of character and spice, and well-suited to drinking with the various dishes; better with food than alone, as the slightly oversharp impact was blunted to where we wanted it. $70 at restaurant price. Dried cherry, lots of pepper, felt very well-crafted with good residual flavour. Probably a B- if drunk alone but a B+ to A- with food.