What is/ Is There the Vintage of the Century

Dipping into the wisdom of the old timers, I would say that exceptional vintages in the 20th century were 1900, 1928, 1929, 1945, 1947, 1949, 1953, 1959, 1961, 1982, 1989 and 1990.

Of the Bdx. vintages above cited, I've been fortunate to have had a few (not many) from 1928, 1947, 1949, 1953 and 1959. Of those cited in the original post, I've had wine from 1934, 1955, 1961 and 1966. Unfortunately, these include some DOAs - 1934 Lafite Rothschild, 1947 L'Evangile, etc. (nb: just the bottles I experienced, I'm not generalizing here). Notably good were the 1949 Climens, 1953 Siran (wonderful '53 from a favored cru bourgeois) and an absolutely stunning 1955 Rauzan Ségla. Worth mentioning were 1966 Latour, 1966 Palmer and 1961 Pichon Lalande.

NB: All wines were ex-château except for the 1934 Lafite Rothschild, 1947 L'Evangile (both DOA) and 1966 Latour.

All that said, as I mentioned earlier, I've not had enough wines from the mentioned vintages to be able to, with any semblance of reliability, make judgments on the said vintages in general. In any event, as some mentioned above, vintage generalizations are what they are - mere generalizations.

Best,

N

While I agree with the idea that every wine should be viewed with an open mind and within context, we all compare (and therefore on some level rank). Whether one uses points, grades, stars, yums, "buy/not buy again" or no overt scale at all, we compare. I've read, enjoyed, and learned from Jim's notes for a decade, and frankly find his comparisons/rankings less opaque than many scores- he ranks and compares, even without scores.

I've had several good to great wines from supposedly terrible vintages, and even more terrible wines from supposedly great vintages. But that doesn't mean that vintage generalizations don't have some validity:
1) I have a lot more 1996 Medoc than 1997 Medoc. I've had some very good 1994 Burgundy, but I can't think of a wine that I'd prefer to own the '94 to the '93. I am glad to own more 2001 Barolo than 2002, more 2001 German Riesling than 2000, etc.
2) I'm pretty much confident that if Jim was offered his choice of a Cru Beaujolais (that he didn't know, but expected to be from a good producer) from 1999, 2002, 2003, or 2005, there is less than a 25% chance he'd choose the 2003. Same 2000 vs. 2003 Chablis.
One could make similar statements with some vintage tweaking about any region.

Obviously some wines outperform, and other underperform in a vintage. But that doesn't make the generalization useless. The bigger problem IMHO is when people misinterpret what a great or good vintage means. The most common example of this being a problem is the guy with the vintage chart in the restaurant ordering what he thinks is the great/hyped vintage, and ordering some shutdown or tannic beast wine. Generalizations are useful, but not in a purely ordinal way. Knowing a bit about the style of the vintage is more important than good/bad. There is still of course plenty of variation between producers/wines, but knowing Vintage X is classic but structured, Vintage Y is lean , and Vintage Z is ripe and open is useful. One might (with good sense) buy one for cellar and a diferent one for drinking tonight in a restaurant.

In the early 60s, $300 was A Lot Of Money. I was making $600 a month as a fresh-out-of-college engineer.

John

I am glad for you, Ron, that you were able to pick up several 61s when top Bordeaux prices were still accessible. However, "vintage of the century" mania deprived me of a similar opportunity.

In 1965, I was working in Paris and the French Minister of Agriculture, M. Pisani, announced from the rooftops that 1964 was "le millésime du siècle"; most people remembering the balmy summer of 1964 were prepared to believe him. I was due to go to Bordeaux on a long business visit and several colleagues were ready to join forces with me to buy a cask of a suitable grand cru.

However, when I got to Bordeaux I heard several reports of the 1964 Médoc vintage having been spoiled by late rain and the broker (courtier) whom I knew concurred and offered instead a cask of 1961 at a reasonable price; I think that Talbot, Beychevelle, Cantemerle and that ilk were mentioned. Having already tasted some 61s from cask, I realised that it was a wonderful opportunity but my colleagues, blinded by M. PIsani's "millésime du siècle" were adamant that it should 64 or nothing; and nothing it was.

History, of course, now knows that 1964 was a mediocre left-bank vintage with a few early harvesting exceptions. As for 1961......

Tim,

That's a neat story. I'm not trying to start a controversy but the first thing that came to my mind when I read your story is that you would have benefited from having someone like Robert Parker around back then.

Tim,

That's a neat story. I'm not trying to start a controversy but the first thing that came to my mind when I read your story is that you would have benefited from having someone like Robert Parker around back then.

Absolutely true, Tom. We are much better informed nowadays. Top UK newspapers like the Times and Financial Times used to run brief vintage reports by about the summer following the vintage. I knew that 1961 was "very good" but the old style gentlemen like Edmund Penning-Rowsell who wrote the columns did not go in for hysterical language like "vintage of the century". However, until I got to Bordeaux, I and my pals had no real information about 1964. My pals chose to disbelieve me; "Tim is being conned by the Bordelais who have surplus stocks of 1961 to get rid of" .

But I think you (out of occupational neccessity) tend to put too much emphasis on comparison...I would enjoy it much less if I tried to rank my experiences and the wines that caused them, in some kind of vacuum.

I don't want to go down too much of a semantic road here but "comparison" does not necessarily have anything to do with ranking. Comparison looks at the similarities and differences across items. So it seems perfectly fine to note that a particular bottle shows richer, more tannic, more lively, duller, whatever, than a bottle of the same wine from the previous day/week/month.

In fact, making those comparisons and noting all the rich differences seems to be exactly what you are doing with your focus on singularity.

Precision in language is challenging.
Your point is well taken.
Best, Jim