We love doing our Cellar Selection series, where we revisit classic Kirkland bottles from years ago that we stashed away in the cellar.
We've been sitting on some of the old, and now retired, Kirkland Pauillac Bordeaux for 6-7 years. Last year we cracked open the 2014 Kirkland Pauillac bottle, and found it to be starting to come off its plateau a bit.
It was still a delicious wine and we were happy to be able to run this taste test. In that review we noted that we also had this 2015 bottle in the cellar; 2015 is among the best vintages of Bordeaux in the past few decades.
We last tasted this bottle on January 17, 2018. The price was $22.99, an absolute steal and we rated the wine 92 points at that time.
Boy were we excited to bring this one back to life, and it didn't disappoint almost 7 years later. It evolved into exactly what we hoped, an exquisite and elegant Bordeaux worthy of bumping that rating up to at least 93 points.
The wine pours a nice ruby in the glass with very little sign of age. You can see the cork above is perfect as this wine has been stored in ideal conditions and untouched for seven years. Classic Bordeaux on the nose, but where it really shines is on the palate.
Delicious fruit, gentle tannins that have softened a bit, nice acidity, perfect finish. This has turned into a very elegant and refined Bordeaux.
It held up much better than the 2014 vintage of the same wine, and leaves some room to run. It's really a shame this wine was discontinued from the Kirkland Portfolio.
We came close with the addition of the Kirkland St Julien Bordeaux, but it's not quite the refinement and quality we think was built into the Pauillac.
There are still some old Kirkland Brunellos in the cellar we need to get into here at some point. Cheers to age worthy wines.
CostcoWineBlog.com Rating: 93 points (updated)
Costco item number was 1036433 and it was purchased in the Atlanta area but long gone now.
Alc. 13%
Don says
Happy you had some in your cellar, I am interested in hearing about what is currently available in the clubs!
Daniel says
Love it. I don’t have any good conditions to store so I consume within 1-2 years latest, but would surely love to do so! Some of the 2018/2019 Cabernets from Napa would have been great. From what read the 2023 Napa vintage is supposed to be possible „once in a generation“ harvest, so I will keep an eye out for the first ones to show up sometime maybe next year.
John says
I opened my 2015 Kirkland Pauillac about 6 months ago and I agree with you how wonderful was the wine. It tasted still youngish. I still have 2 more bottles and I am planning to revisit it in 3 years. For the same reason I have more than 12 bottles of 2020 Kirkland Saint-Julien.
Cheers!