The aftermath of Maria has made us more conscious of the little pleasures in life and more grateful for moments shared with friends and family. Yesterday our wine group met for a tasting based on the theme of which Bordeaux would you save from your cellar if you only had time to pull one bottle. Included are the wines and brief tasting impressions.
1978 Cheval Blanc- Really elegant and complete wine. Classic mature Bordeaux aromatics and a velvety balanced texture. Nearly perfect Bordeaux.
1978 Haut Brion - Sweet fruit on the attack, ample body, and a tobacco dominated finish made this wine a pleasure to drink. Really pretty wine at a great stage of development.
1978 Mission Haut Brion - Monolithic and incredibly still closed. A little bit of fruit came out from around the wall of tannins after some coaxing but this was one grumpy bottle of Bordeaux.
1982 Cheval Blanc - Whoa, what a gorgeous glass of wine. It had lots of everything and gas on the tank for future development. Another near perfect Bordeaux.
1982 Pichon Lalande - The perfect Bordeaux. Enough said.
1982 Mission Haut Brion - Corked.
1982 Mouton Rothschild - One click below the 82 Lalande. While the Pichon was all about hedonistic pleasure the Mouton was more cerebral.
1985 Lynch Bages - This is another wine that is all about pleasure and arouses all of the senses. The green pepper was in balance on this bottle and the complexity was off the charts. The best bottle I’ve had of this wine.
1986 Mission Haut Brion - The vintage dominated and the drying tannins were a distraction to the wonderful balance of power and grace in this wine.
1989 Chateau Margaux - Elegant, aristocratic, perfumed, old school Bordeaux.
1989 Lynch Bages - This wine had so much fruit that it appeared from Napa. Wonderful but needs years to resolve and give the pleasure of the 85 Lynch.
Thanks for reading. Which one would you grab and save from your cellar?