Cahors Prince Probus 1995 - Clos Triguedina, Baldès -12.5% alc
Last night Germaine prepared an unctuous cassoulet and I was looking forward to a real treat by pairing it with this Cahors, about which in October 2007 I wrote -
C: Very dense deep red with no bricking at the rim. N: At first cedar and cigar box ( my goodness! another oak bomb!) but slowly notes of sour dark fruit, dry leather and some 90% bitter chocolate came up and integrated the wood which then provides an agreeable if still present element of complexity. P: Subdued at first but opening up. Considerable weight and density of fruit and body with a classically balanced shape on the palate (quiet entry building up towards the rear of the palate but with perhaps an over rapid diminuendo on the finish); firmly velvety with quite marked acidity and tannic structure, similar aromas to the nose but with the wood more in the background and some tar and mint notes on the finish.
This wine is not a crowd pleaser but I liked its distinguished complexity and upright austerity (a bit like the landscape in Quercy from where it comes). I guess that it would have been intolerably oaky, for me, in its youth. I have read in the French wine press that most Cahors from the mid-90s are ageing badly. Well, this one isn’t and, in my view, would benefit from a few more years. Reads like 17/20.
Well, I was bitterly disappointed. Last night, all the breadth and complexity seemed to have been stripped out of the wine and we were just left with the sour fruit and the acidity; even the wood notes were no longer apparent. Drinkable but uninteresting; hardly 14/20.
I wonder if this was a case of the ravages of subliminal TCA, although I could neither smell nor taste any of that, and the cork, only one-third stained, looked quite sound. I also find it hard to accept that three more years in the bottle could have precipitated such a decline on its own.
Cahors seems to walk a tight rope between complex upright austerity and lean meanness and this bottle fell off on the wrong side.