Trophy Wine Night Hosted by Iron Gate Auctions on July 31, 2026

Hello everyone, welcome back to my YouTube channel. Today I'm doing another review of a recent wine that I had. There's been quite a few of these during the summer. You're going to see a couple of these over the next little while because people are in town. This one is a little bit different. This is actually held by Iron Gate Auction Houses. So we just got together a bunch of people that wanted to drink and they kind of brought some nice wines. Iron Gate is the premier auction house in Canada at this point and I'll probably do a video on buying and selling wine with them. I've had good experiences selling wine to them. I'm going to be buying wine for them and then go through that process. It's actually quite a nice way to get your hands on some really great wines. And so it was a really nice night. Each person that was invited brought a bottle and so this is and then Iron Gate brought a few couple more bottles and so this is our lineup for the night which is really quite spectacular. First wine of the dinner this is the Charles Isaac 2007 Blanc de Milanaires. This is 100% Chardonnay Blanc de Blanc and this is only made in specific years. I think the first vintage was 1983 and I don't think I think they've only made eight or nine vintages. And so a really special wine. I think it's really really well priced and I've loved every time I've drank this wine. It's not that expensive compared to other really really top end campaigns and it's still young. I think you can age it a little bit more but my tasting notes citrus and yuzu and grapefruit with a bit of caramel and minerality. I think I could use a few more years. I've had the 1983 which has a much more candied apricot taste to it so this is just quite youthful right now and I would age this for a little bit longer. My rating is 93 points. All of these wines showed really well and that's all you can ask that you have them in great condition. The next bottle is brought by another person it's the Chateau Carwan 2000 which is a great vintage. Chateau Carwan third growth from the Margaux region. I always love this wine. It's on the lighter style of Bordeaux wines. The blend is 44% Cabernet Sauvignon, 32% Merlot, 14% Cabernet Franc and 10% Petit Verdot. It's fully mature and it's probably drinking well. If anything it probably is slightly in decline at this point so you should drink up on this wine. We didn't decant it. It was just good fruit out of the bottle. It had some dried cranberries and plums with some olives and tobacco leaf on the finish. I thought it was quite a pleasant wine and a nice way to move into the other more heavier wines. My rating was 90 points. The next two were brought by Iron Gate and I have to thank the owner Warren who was there at the tasting. He brought two 1982s and I've had kind of hit and miss experiences 1982. This is why provenance is so important. These two were in exceptional shape and that's why provenance matters so much. These were spectacular. So if every 82 is like this then it's different but I've had a lot that are kind of not as in good provenance or not in good shape and so it does affect the wine. I find the older the wine the more the provenance and the storage matters. So this one just exceptional. It was just a wonderful wine. Really aromatic on the aroma. The taste that still had a lot of fruit in it and still had a lot of life on this. I didn't think it was old at all and so it was showing very nicely. I think you could drink this and easily another 10-20 years. It wasn't really slowing down. It had still a little bit of fruit but mostly dried fruits but still I loved it. My notes, cigar box, herbs and dark fruit on the nose. You had dark fruits, some vanilla, some plums, some figs and prototypical Asian spice for this wine. I thought this was an excellent, excellent example of a bottle, a well-kept bottle and my rating is 95 points. The next bottle was probably my wine of the night. The Lynchbash 1982. Lynchbash in great vintages is just spectacular. Almost at first growth level. Especially true with older Lynch like 89, 90. They're all really spectacular and this was an exceptional bottle of 1982. For my palate, a better wine than Costa Sernal which was already a spectacular wine. It just had just a little bit more depth, a little bit more weight on it, a little bit more core fruit. It was just magnificent wine. So my notes, tobacco, smoke and currants on the nose. Still had a lot of fruit, all the dark fruits you can think of. Cassis, black currants, blackberries, tobacco. You had some pencil lead and graphite on this and again really showing youthfully and in great condition. My rating is 97 points. Another great wine, this is the 2005. This is a great vintage from Pont des Canets, a fifth growth from Pollock region. This was the older style of Pont des Canets. I think if you got to the 2010, maybe 2009 onwards, you get a much more fleshier modern style. Especially after 2015 even. So this is an older rustic style but it was still very pleasant. The blend here is 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot. I think it is in its drinking window. It is paired to modern day Pont des Canets. It's a little bit more tighter and backward but really dark fruits and lots of core flavors on this. So it's really nice. My notes, Cassis, black currants and oak with some spice on the end. I think it is in its drinking window and I think it's drinking nicely. We did decant the wine. My rating is 94 points. Next wine is the 2014 Aubaillé, which is not a growth wine but in the Pessac-London region. Very nice wine, very respected wine. I believe it's very common Cabernet Sauvignon dominant and this is kind of one of these not as hot vintages. So nice to drink, you don't need to decant as long. It's a little bit younger so it was a little bit more fruity. I thought it was a fine wine and I thought it was good core fruit. Still on the medium-bodied side and a lot of black fruit. It had a little bit of black truffles actually on the aftertaste. So I enjoyed this wine. My rating was 90 points. This is the next wine that I actually brought, which is the 2010 Laforte de La Tour, the second wine of Chateau La Tour, which really is not a second wine. It's equivalent to most Grand Cru wines for the Bordeaux region. It's actually arguably better than La Tour at this point because it's just softer. Chateau La Tour can be a little bit tannic and need a lot of time to air. This was actually pretty good in its drinking window and drinkable. So it was powerful but it still had that smoothness. The fruits are very well integrated. I had black plums, anise, cassis, blackberry with tobacco and cocoa on the aftertaste. Thought it can age long time but it is really in its drinking window so I really enjoyed it. 95 points. This was another wine brought by Iron Gate and this was from JP. It was great. This is the 2005 Dominus and we did this wine and it did smell a little different than Bordeaux but you know it is a Bordeaux blend so it had dark cherries. It was medium-bodied. U.S. cabs usually have a much more herbal element to this so they had tobacco and thyme on the aftertaste. I thought it was drinking really nicely. My rating is 93 points. And then ending the night, Warren from Iron Gate brought in a 1983 Chateau de Chem. So I've had many Chateau de Chem. I don't think I've ever rated a de Chem lower than 95 points. It's always spectacular. It's just the degree of spectacularness and I forgot about this one when I said the I think this would compete with it. This was like an exceptional bottle. I mean every bottle of de Chem is excellent but this was another level spectacular. I thought it was one of the best examples of de Chem I've had. Maybe the 66 is one of the other ones but this was exceptional and just had everything. If you wanted to know about de Chem or wanted to know what Sauternes tastes like, this would be like a perfect example of it. They had really concentrated honeysuckle. Not just the sweetness but it's got that little bit of apricots and pineapples and just a vanilla custard almost like a egg tart. It had some rose petals on the aroma, some tropical fruit and honey. I just love this wine. It was like unbelievable and everyone just thought it was wonderful. Also my rating was 98 points. All in all it was a great tasting and this is just a beautiful example of how you don't need really really expensive wines. You just need great wines of good vintages in great condition. So we didn't have any first growth wines here but I think I had four scores over 95 points. So really pleasant night and it doesn't mean that you have to always have really really expensive wines. Although these are great wines. The wine of the night I guess for most people was either de Chem or one of the 82 Bordeaux's but we had some votes for also the Laforte Latour and also for the Kerouane for the Elegance. So everyone enjoyed everything. The wines showed really well and really wanted to thank Iron Gate for bringing out some very nice wines too for us to try. So hope you've enjoyed this video. Until next time, happy drinking!