So great to open a bottle of old Bordeaux with a big steak on Valentines Day. This bottle of '34 Lalande was verified to be reconditioned by the domaine but unclear of the year. Great fill and cork. This wine at first was very subdued and questionable, so I decanted it off of the chunky sediment and let it sit for about 15 minutes. It opened into such a stunner, exactly what you always hope for in Bordeaux of this era. Cedar, pencil shavings, chocolate covered cherries, and forest floor. Same notes on the palate with added smokiness, char, and blackberry. It had an odd echo of old Cali wines of the 70s. Incredible weight and acidity but what struck me most was the sweetness of the fruit in such perfect balance with the acid. I’ve had more experience with 1937s than '34s but I certainly understand why Broadbent called '34 the vintage of the decade.
Here’s a photo of the bottle. As a newbie to the board I can’t quite figure out how to rotate the image. Maybe one of you can assist. Cheers.
How was it verified to have been reconditioned ?
Did the short old-style colorless capsule have the chateau embossings ? -Or any branded stamp on the cork?
Do You have other pics of this fine ole lady ?
(My mother is from 1937, and father from 1934, so very interesting for Me. I try to collect these two vintages.)
I’ve also had this problem with pix shot on my phone. Evidently it’s a quirk of the Berserkers software and you have to make an edit of the image on your phone – even an invisible one – and that fixes the orientation data in the image file for purposes of posting.
If I remember correctly, the capsule was embossed. The cork definitely had the chateau stamp and was in quite good condition. I’ve had a few reconditioned bottles from this era and am always slightly suspect, of course, but this seemed to be the real deal on all fronts.
Hi lily.
The reason I asked for how it was recognized as a reconditioned bottle, is that I think it more resembles an original chateau bottling.
Here, a pic of a similar look, 1928. (Not confirmed genuine, just a photo.)
The later used chateau capsules are all, as We know, shiny gold. If this was reconditioned (need some age to receive the treatment), I can’t see the use of an old lead capsule when reconditioning.
I had attended a vertical tasting of Pichon Lalande with May Eliane de Lencquesaing, former owner of this wine and in this tasting the 1934 performed magnificently as my ranking of the best shows :
1926, 1934, 1953, 1959, 1989, 1990, 1982.
I wrote : The 1934 has a beautiful color. The nose is rather discreet. On the palate, it’s happiness. Because the balance between flourishing and acidity is done admirably. The length is extreme and its trace is of rare elegance.
The pic from Claus’ link has the gold cap, and the vintage printed in curly old number fonts “1934”.
Lilys bottle(label) has more simple styled numbers, and has
“Appellation Pauillac Controlee” added just under “PAUILLAC”.
This could point at a later released bottle, and therefore also a reconditioned one as mentioned.
I’m still puzzled about the raw lead capsule though.
This is a little intriguing. From the little that I know about this seller, it could easily have just been a later release bottling ex-chateau. The label is definitely from a more recent era but the capsule does seem to be the original. A little tricky here.
