Our tasting group’s most recent get-together featured the red wines of Bordeaux as a theme. Ed was our kind host for the evening and it was a merry old time, especially with a lot of these wines drinking so wonderfully right now.
N.V. Pol Roger Champagne Extra Cuvée de Reserve. Ed served two bottles, one purchased in May of 2007, and the other in October of 2009. It was interesting to taste them side by side. I preferred the older bottle’s darker-toned, yeastier bouquet and its deeper, more rounded flavors and mouthfeel. The younger bottle was much crisper, with more chalk, limestone and green apple tang to it and a drier all-around personality. While it is possible that vintage differences played a role here, I tend to think that I just prefer the wine with a bit more time on the cork.
1975 Chateau Le Gay Pomerol. Our first red of the evening displays a browning color with a good deal of clearing at the rim of the glass. Right off the bat, the nose gives off aromas of roasted or stewed red fruit—which is a shame because beneath those difficult aromas one can also sense some lovely aged notes of wilted roses, white pepper, forest floor, caramel and gentle spearmint. In the mouth, it has a lot of typical 1975 vintage characteristics to it—a fair dose of hard tannins still kicking around and a rather cool acidic edge running all the way through. The mid-palate of dark cherry and black earth flavors is a bit more giving than the taut entry or cinched-up finish and the wine does unfold and soften a fair bit with food and cheese—making me like it more as the evening goes on. Even though I don’t think this was a particularly great bottle of this wine, my advice would still be to drink up soon.
1982 Chateau Le Gay Pomerol. In sharp contrast, the 1982 is a very healthy-looking dark garnet color. And the nose is really rich and youthful, with a clean, pure red-fruitedness that is nicely expansive and fleshy and is supported by engaging notes of suede and light tobacco. In the mouth, it is plush and pliant and very fleshy-textured, though there is definitely some sneaky tannin still in play. It is pleasantly red-fruited and pulls in nice character notes of tobacco, earth and jalapeno toward the finish to round out the flavor profile. It displays a lot of beauty, but my one caveat is that it never quite allows itself to fully “release” on the finish—seemingly holding something back for later. I would say there is no real rush on this.
1978 Chateau Talbot St. Julien. Oh man, this is one delightfully funky old Cordier bottling! The nose is absolutely chock-a-block with aromas of saddle leather, barnyard funk, horses, tobacco leaf, toasted orange peel, fireplace ash, green pepper pizza and dried red currant and cherry fruit. It is wonderfully old-fashioned and just begs to be nursed along so you can just keep swirling and sniffing it. In the mouth, it is medium-weighted, feeling plenty lively—with a good acidic backbone that gives the feminine red fruit flavors a nice tanginess to go along with the more sinewy undertone impressions of earth and tobacco. It is deliciously-flavored, still very much alive, but beautifully layered and opened up at this stage. I love it—my runner-up for WOTN and the group’s #3.
1985 Chateau Leoville Barton St. Julien. Here one finds more youthful but layered aromas of leather, tobacco, dark molasses, faint sarsparilla and a little hint of attic must to go along with lilting and tangy red fruit. In the mouth, it feels kind of lithe and ropy with a muscled oomph and more heavily-weighted density. At the same time, though, it is glossy-textured and rather smooth with its gorgeous cherry, raspberry and candied strawberry fruit blend of flavors. Although it isn’t quite as personality-driven as some of my more favored wines this night, it is nonetheless an excellent wine and offers a lot of drinking pleasure now and for a few more years to come.
1978 Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande Pauillac. This is quite simply a fantastic wine for my tastes. It all begins with a classically gorgeous bouquet of black cherry, black raspberry, fine dusty earth, tobacco leaf, a little bit of green pepper and a fine dusting of spearmint. In the mouth, it is utterly delicious, just completely resolved and giving up all of its full range of flavors and textures at this time. It is softly tangy, but also luxuriant, full of wilted red flower inner perfume but also pumping out the perfectly-pitched red currant and cherry fruit flavors over notes of mint leaf and classy earth. Everything is perfectly-integrated and balanced right now, and the length and persistence of the wine is just great. It has to be drinking at its peak right now—my and the group’s WOTN.
1989 Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande Pauillac. This is a whole different kind of bouquet than the 1978, but still quite appealing in its own way. It features direct and giving aromas of black cherry, raspberry torte, hard leather, animal fur, fresh-turned earth and cooled bacon fat in a rich mixture of fruit and earth tones. On the palate, it seems kind of thick and pasty after some of the earlier wines—with the richest fruit profile of the tasting thus far. It is absolutely stuffed with sweet red fruit flavors, but with a solid underpinning of green pepper and leather accents. It sticks to the teeth a bit but still flows along just fine because of the bright vein of acidity running down the spine of the wine. Although thre are some moderately dense tannins here, the wine actually improves the longer I stay with it—not allowing those tannins to interfere with the wine’s giving nature. I really like the wine a lot, but I think it could benefit from some extended decanting.
1989 Chateau Pichon Longueville Baron Pauillac. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Baron is a much more masculine-seeming wine on the nose—ratcheting things up quite a bit on the blacker fruit and darker earth tones right from the start. It smells of black currant and black raspberry fruit and cool earth tones and reeks of polished class. In the mouth, it is even more decidedly masculine and cool in style, with a rather full-bodied feel and a solid framework of structure and acids. It is smooth, stylish and classy on the surface, with an interesting bit of sinew and muscled finesse underneath—sort of like Connery’s version of 007. It is certainly highly appealing right now, but there is plenty of life left here for the long haul, too. This was the group’s runner-up for WOTN.
1999 Chateau Pichon Longueville Baron Pauillac. I’ve really enjoyed this wine in the past, but tonight I think it is showing a bit raw. The nose in particular has an unfinished feel to it, with all kinds of brambly berry fruit and toasted stem notes giving it a briary, zesty feel--which is just exacerbated by the supporting notes of white pepper, cigar ash and hickory wood smoke. However, it does slowly grow on me the longer I swirl and sniff it, so maybe my initial judgment is a bit too harsh. Either way, I like the wine a lot on the palate right from the get-go. It tastes of black currant, smoky cherries, mocha, savory spices and a touch of woodiness, and it features a long, persistent finish that holds the promise of even better showings yet to come.
2001 Chateau La Conseillante Pomerol. This was double-decanted a few hours before the tasting. It displays a rather beautiful purplish color and offers up a lovely, rich bouquet that coats the nostrils with aromas of plums, dark currants, graphite, pencil shavings and sexy bits of exotic fruitcake spice notes. It is plush and lush and really just starting to stretch its wings, seemingly. In the mouth, it is thick and unctuous and low-acid in style—feeling luxuriant, pliant and velvety on the tongue. It expands very nicely throughout the mouth and there is a sexy incense and lavendar sort of inner perfume to it, as well, that I like a lot. It is just totally caressing and cashmere-textured, though pretty darned young when all is said and done—especially when the abundant tannins make themselves felt toward the back of the palate. This is a great wine that will just keep getting better over the next decade or so, but with some extended air I think it can be enjoyed sooner than that, as well.
2006 Chateau La Fleur-Petrus Pomerol. I have to say that I am kind of turned off by the nose of this wine, which features aggressive aromas of industrial rubber, greenish grape stems, and too much raw alcohol that really mar the more shyly-hidden notes of black cherry and softer earth tones. It does slowly integrate and meld a bit more over time, but never really into anything that pulls me into the wine. In the mouth, it is full-bodied and has a lot of youthful fruit stuffing supported by abundant tannins, but it lacks finesse or complexity at this very young age—focusing more on the candied/confectionary red fruit that it carries in such abundance. It got a third-place vote but it was way down the list for me. Maybe it will really blossom down the road, but I just can’t tell based on this showing.
2007 Chateau Haut-Batailley Pauillac. This wine is even more exceedingly young, but I have higher hopes for this one. It opens up with aromas of oak, mushrooms, twigs, leather and earth but also lots of red currant, plum and blue cotton candy sorts of notes riding atop all of that. In the mouth, it is full of blueberry and cherry liqueur fruit flavors, with a definite streak of coffee and fine earth. It is tight and taut, but really solidly-fruited. I wouldn’t touch this for at least another decade, but I think it will prove to be solid.
1976 Chateau Suduiraut Sauternes. Toward the end of the evening, our friend Adam stopped by to say hello to everybody and he brought this bottle along with him to share. I’m really glad he did! Although the color is golden, the nose is all orange—featuring lifted aromas of clementine, dried apricot, toasted orange peel and interesting notes of salinity and petrol. In the mouth, it starts out feeling pretty fresh and tangy, with some crystalline flavors of orange, apricot, honeydew melon and caramel apple. There doesn’t seem to be a huge amount of botrytis or honeyed character, though the wine does turn more unctuous and rich on the second glass. Still, it stays zesty and vibrant and finely-acidic all the while—with a rather fresh finish to it that I like a lot. This would seem to be an aged Sauternes that an acid-lover could like (but really, what’s not to like here?). It was a great end to a special evening!
-Michael