WTN: 34 years old and requiring airing ..

1983 Château Latour à Pomerol
Quite smoky and herbacious right after opening. - Let time fix the problems ..
The wine becomes sweeter (not fruitier) with airing, and it develops a nice harmony made of secondary fruit notes, whole grain bread, fermented tea and spicy tobacco.
For lovers of highly aromatic tannins, not for fruit drinkers And it goes extremely well with food.
Even after extended airing showing no signs of deterioration. I'm impressed. My subjective rating: 91/100.

Cheers, Rainer

[Jenise]

Airing always feels like such a crapshoot, doesn't it? Will the wine fill out, or will it die? I recall reading a recommendation for airing rare 50 year old Giacosa barolos for 8-12 hours. Guy said, "your heart will be in your throat all day, but you WILL be rewarded. Usually." Made me wonder how many times I might have assumed a wine was crashing that might have come back from the dead had I given it more time.

Airing always feels like such a crapshoot, doesn't it? Will the wine fill out, or will it die? I recall reading a recommendation for airing rare 50 year old Giacosa barolos for 8-12 hours. Guy said, "your heart will be in your throat all day, but you WILL be rewarded. Usually." Made me wonder how many times I might have assumed a wine was crashing that might have come back from the dead had I given it more time.

From my (limited) experience I can tell that there is only hope for wines that have either a very healthy tannin structure and/or great concentration. - 80% of the old wines I had revealed within 30 minutes if there was reason for hope or not. But you're right, there are those magic bottles that do not fit into any pattern of expectation.