Thought this might be a good choice for my first WB Tasting Note:
1980 Chateau Margaux
We finished off a long day of celebrating my neighbors 37th birthday by raiding my cellar late in the evening on Saturday. I started pulling out some old Bordeaux bottles that I had acquired from a collection last year. The cellar contained a lot of off-vintages in rough shape and I split it with a colleague for virtually nothing and honestly we didn’t really expecting anything to be great. I completely forgot that I had this 1980 Margaux mixed in with those. I actually looked for anything 1980 earlier in the week in our retail inventory, but being such a so-so vintage globally, I came up empty. So needless to say we were stoked to discover this dirty old birthday bottle.
The cork had some minor signs of old seepage, but the ullage was around top shoulder, so not terrible for it’s age. I almost got the cork out but it snapped very close to the bottom. (I really need to invest in an ah-so). We quickly poured the wine through a strainer and into a decanter. I was fully expecting the bottle to be completely shot, but the color still had some nice rose tones with bricking around the edge. The nose was actually quite pleasant. A classic older Margaux with a touch of extra funk from the age. I was worried that the promising nose was just setting us up for a let down, but the wine was actually still alive across the palate. It was fairly thin, but still some contained bright red fruit and also a bit of black currant, tobacco, some pencil shavings and earthy forest floor/barnyard notes. The finish obviously was pretty minimal, but the wine was quite enjoyable overall, especially considering we expected it to be DOA. A really great birthday surprise. If I had to score it, I would say it was probably around 87-89.
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