WTN: 1990 Chateau Haut-Marbuzet and Google Earth.

1990 Chateau Haut-Marbuzet Saint-Estephe Bordeaux France. Deep red color with some bricking on the edges, deep hue, wonderful aroma of fruit, earth, chocolate and more, very good to excellent fruit tastes, mild acidity, good tannins, excellent balance, a bit oaky but pleasant nontheless, chewy, long finish. Wonderful development over two hours in the glass. The second half of the bottle lost a bit of fruit and gained acidity after a day in the fridge -- I wouldn't decant this wine, but would allow it to develop in the glass. 5* first night; 3+* on the second night.

I've had great fun playing with Google Earth and locating the vineyards in France. One can zoom into the Chateaux and compare them with hte photos on the bottles -- Chateau Haut-Marbuzet was particularly nice from the satellite images I thought.

[Jenise]

Bob, I presume you have to type in an address, you can't just say "Chateau Haut-Marbuzet", right? Much as I dive into my wine atlas a lot, never thought of googling the vineyards. Now that you've suggested it, though, I'll have to play with this.

I haven't conquered the French addressing system yet Jenise. You can't just use the name of the Chateau. What I do is go to Paris and then "fly" to Bordeaux -- of course, I could "fly" to Bordeaux from New Jersey, but I like looking at Paris from the air.

Then, go down river manually -- using the big Johnson Atlas or another map of the region. That's fun too -- but I would like to get to some of the smaller regions directly when time is short.

Regards, Bob

You can't just use the name of the Chateau.

Actually, I just tried in and in some cases you can. I typed in "Chateau Haut-Brion, Bordeaux, France" and it went there. A higher view that also identified Domaine de Chevalier, and Branaire-Ducru and LLC to the north.