WTN: 66 Lafite and 66 Bouscaut

[Jenise]

I invited a recently widowed friend to dinner last night. She's not a wine person (loves red wine, but her favorite is Charles Shaw Shiraz or do they call it syrah), but knows I know from what so she brought along some bottles rescued recently from her 96 year old mother's apartment. Most were junk ('90 Mouton Cadet blanc, anyone?) but a '66 Bouscaut (Graves) and a '66 Lafite had the most potential and we opened them.

Didn't actually hold out much hope for either: a well-cared for 66 Lafite would be a fine thing but this bottle was leaking already--the bottle was actually moist when I pulled it out of the bag--and the Bouscaut? Well, I've never heard of Bouscaut. Both had 1/2" below the shoulder ullage and the corks came out in crumbles. But where the Lafite was, not surprisingly, beyond enjoyment, the Bouscaut was actually a pretty nice wine with a bright and deep burnished red color and solid mature Bordeaux flavors. Not notable or worthy of more detail but interesting in a never-count-them-out kind of way.

I remember '66 Bouscaut as an old friend; drank numerous bottles back in the mid-70's, nice to hear it's still giving pleasure, so many years later. It was always a lovely wine!

Lurton property... so fairly good pedigree... http://www.thewinedoctor.com/bordeaux/bouscaut.shtml

I think the Lafites of this era were on the light side, so they tended to fade fairly early unless given very cold storage! Otoh, I remember the first Bouscaut I ever had, the '74, a rather poor vintage, but the Bouscaut was surprisingly good (at least 20 years ago! ).

Darn, Jenise, I recently threw away notes which would have confirmed it, from a pile on my desk that I had to do something with when we painted the walls of my office: I might have drunk a 1966 Bouscaut myself, maybe three years ago, at my brother's erstwhile girlfriend's house. I know it was a Bouscaut from the '60s, and 66 feels right, and I didn't expect anything when the woman opened it, but it was amazingly good. Kept perfectly, I am pretty sure.