I have been off the boards for a while, between a minor elective surgery, a minor elective dryout and a major workload. The dryout came to an end during the national sales meeting of my wine business. These are what we opened the first night, as much out of curiosity as for pleasure. None were purchased on release but I’d had some for a few decades. Good provenance for some, unknown for others. Brief notes and approximate scores, with fill levels.
OK, planet earth clocks in at about 4.5 billion years, so ancient has to be put in context. These seven Cabs were 30 – 50 years old. All were decanted. The two with lower fill levels were Audouzed for a few hours. The others were decanted and poured right away. Kudos to Mark Slater of Pennsylvania 6 in Washington, D.C. He is one of the most pleasant and professional sommeliers you will find anywhere. On a very busy ‘restaurant week’ night, he was always checking back in and he handled cork removal and decanting with a deftness few somms could match.
All labeled Cabernet Sauvignon
1964 Charles Krug Napa Valley Vintage Selection – fill into neck. Tired color, brown-orange. Dead leaves to the fore in the aromas, but with enough life left to have some Cab identity through notes of red cherry and black currant. Soft palate with some fruit, but a real lack of vivacity. Rated high 70s; drinkable but not fully enjoyable.
1966 Charles Krug Napa Valley Vintage Selection – fill mid to upper shoulder. From a good but lesser vintage than the 1964, with lousy fill, much fresher and better. Go figure (the Audouze?). Color marginally better, nose much fresher, this is definitely Cabernet. Better freshness and backbone, simple cherry fruit, a little wiry, only slightly autumnal this is clearly Napa Cabernet with tannins fully resolved. A pleasant beverage at first, but it fell apart quickly. Rated about 85 – 86 at first, then zero.
1967 Inglenook – fill into neck. Regular bottling, indifferent vintage, but really fine. Medium garnet color with only slight bricking. Fairly fresh aromas with red currants and raspberries, definite conifer hints. The palate was nicely curranty and balanced, a little simple. Relatively light in body but solid and thoroughly enjoyable. Rated about 90, held up well for over an hour.
1968 Charles Krug – fill into neck. Regular bottling, great vintage, showed well. This had a more subdued aroma than the Inglenook, with the fruit clearly riper (vintage as much as producer?). There seemed to be some oak present, although I’m not sure what if any oak they were using at that time. Someone else commented on it as well. This had slightly fuller body than the Inglenook and and more complexity, but the fruit was a little dull in comparison. Rated about 88 – 89, held up pretty well but not as well as the Inglenook.
1977 Page Mill Napa Valley – high shoulder. DOA.
1982 Chateau Chevalier Spring Mountain – fill into neck. This had a healthy color and pleasant, reasonably fresh red fruit aromas although not as clearly Cabernet. The palate was enjoyable but disjointed, with some acidity sticking out and a little more conifer than even I like. Clearly a mountain wine, still drinkable but probably better earlier. Maybe falling apart, although it didn’t change much over the next hour or so. Rated about 83 – 84.
1985 Fetzer Sonoma Reserve – fill into neck. This was a pale ruby, but with no sign of orange or brown. The aromas were ripe and plummy, with some cedary notes. The palate was light in body but with the freshest fruit of all. This was slightly simple, but really enjoyable, nothing but pure well-preserved fresh tender plum and red cherry fruit. Light and simple are not normally descriptors of fine Cabernet, but this was a solid 88 – 89 point wine. It faded gently over the next hour, but has to qualify as the best surprise of the evening.
Overall a good showing. Historically Napa has been much warmer than Bordeaux so I don’t expect the same longevity. However these relatively unambitious wines showed as well as could be expected; as well as recent tastes of such famously ‘built to last’ producers as Mayacamas and Ridge.
Dan Kravitz
I taught wine classes at UC Extension for about fifteen years with a man named Jim Olsen. We bought three cs of the 66 Krug VS around 1980 to show the students what a mature cab tasted like. It was wonderful through the mid '80s. Hard to imagine it lasting 50 years.
I’ve recently drunk '93 and '94 Colgin. They taste great now but will go another 10 or 20 years.
One thing winemakers have learned about since 1980 is tannin management. Many of today’s wines
don’t taste as tannic as they did thirty years ago, but if you analyse them, the tannin is there in spades.
Interesting, and good point. I’ve always thought that while many of the late 60’s, 70’s, and early 80s wines have held up and are drinking as classics, there were a ton of Cal cabs that when consumed within 10-12 years of release were just tannin bombs.
Thanks for the great notes - I always love reading about old Cali wines.
Old (affordable) Cali Cabs are one of my wine passions and I try to pick up old bottles when I can find them at reasonable prices (for me that’s around the $50 mark). I had the good fortune of opening a 1965 version of Charles Krug Vintage Selection at Thankgiving. I purchased it as a birth year wine and given the dismal reputation of the '65 vintage worldwide, the humble-ish origins of this wine and the 50 years of age I would have been totally happy with just drinkable. Instead, it was quite enjoyable and while obviously old very much not dead. As with so many of the old Cali Cabs I have tried it really came together after the bottle was open for a couple of hours. Very definite Cab characteristics, aged but not ancient with some decent grip, but not as complex or layered as another better bottling might have been. Still it was a super addition to the Thanksgiving festivities and I got to share it with some non-geeky friends who were quite excited to try a 50 year-old wine (as was I since it was my first go at a birth-year wine).
I’ve tasted many vintages of Charles Krug Vintage Selection from the mid-1960s into the 1970s, most of them on several occasions. The 1965 is my favorite, and your point about the wine improving over time has almost invariably proven true with these older Krugs. A 1972 that I drank a year ago, which hardly seemed worth saving in the glass when first poured, was a good older California cab after an hour. I’m surprised to read how poorly these wines showed for Dan and probably need to drink what I still have in the cellar sooner rather than later.
For wines like these the key is how they were stored. I had a Hallcrest '58 some years ago that the wine store refused to sell to me, but instead gave it to me for free since he could not guarantee the quality. In face, the store had obtained the wine directly from the winery and had kept it for all those years in his store. It was one of those ‘wines in the back storage I forget about’ wines. Of course, I took it and when I opened it the wine was amazing. '58 is a legendary year in CA and I previously had the BVPR, Inglewood Cask and the Martini SS and this wine was easily their equal. Best value ever.
Thanks for the notes, Dan!
It is definitely a different world today in regards to wine. I enjoyed reading about these time capsules.
Thanks Dan,
I have a bottle of 66’ Inglenook for my 50th this year and a bottle 67’ BV GdL for my wife’s next year that we are looking forward to.
a 68 Louis Martini Special Selection Cabernet in 1985 stunned me early in my wine days-- that a wine could taste so good so old–amazing! Thanks for jarring the memory loose.
1966 Krug. Robert Mondavi’s last year there with his brother.
Funny - I remember that same wine. It threw so much sediment it was like coffee grounds! That must have been in the early 2000’s I’m thinking.
Next week, I will be opening a 1956 Krug, and will report. Bottle looks beautiful.
Thanks to all who replied. It’s nice to see so many people interested in the older wines.
Although we took as much care as possible considering a crowded restaurant, the wines might have improved with gentler handling and more time. Still, I think I will limit my purchases of older California Cabs to those not much more than 30 years old, maybe a little less for the less ambitious wines. I still have no qualms about older Bordeaux, especially mid-range Medocs (my poster child is Lanessan).
I think a factor in the wine’s longevity was acidity. I didn’t look at the labels, but IIRC in those days everything said 12%, or 12 1/2% or something like 11 - 14%. Of course the numbers were just printed on to the label and did not reflect actual alcohol levels, but I think they were substantially lower in the 60s, probably actually in the 12 - 13% range, harvested with correspondingly higher acidities, and the acidity helped preserve them.
Dan Kravitz