I had the distinct pleasure of attending a once-in-a-lifetime dinner around Petrus last month in London , but as Neal Martin was also present , he no doubt will report on it .
Yesterday , with good friends , we had another Petrus dinner in Belgium . Imho , the wine’s distinctive characteristic is a brick taste and smell , something I associate with great Chambertin . Petrus has great power but is not creamy . Chewy tannins that are not green . It can age like no other Pomerol ( my friend Frans disagrees as he is a Lafleur fan ) . Petrus was absolutely great in the fourties and fifties . Less so later , but the 1998 is again fabulous .
The best Petrus I ever had was the 1950 . I had it a few times but only once was it perfect . That particular magical bottle came from my friend’s cellar and was bought on release . The other ones were bought later and were probably kept in less good cellars .
A few of my friends are born before ww 2 and have distinct memories about their parents buying Petrus by the barrel . Buying a barrel was common practice : they received the barrel , the labels and could bottle themselves . My friend Benoit’s father each year bought 3 barrels of Cheval Blanc , that was their house wine . My other friend’s father-in-law bought 1 barrel of Petrus , each time the year was considered great .( 45 , 47 , 48 , 50 etc ) Petrus was always the most expensive wine , much more expensive than for example Cheval Blanc .This practice only stopped around the late seventies .
The wines yesterday :
Petrus 1998 : terrific power , still young , this wine will age for decades . Dark in colour , tremendous length , the real deal .
Petrus 1990 : while Parker scores this 100 points , it is not a great wine , only a very good one . It lacks freshness and vibrancy . It always tastes a little tired .
Petrus 1985 : not a good year for Petrus and this wine is now past its peak .
Petrus 1982 : here Parker only gives it a 93 but it is a much better wine . If bought and stored impeccably , you will enjoy this tremendously . Very much in style of the 98 . Power and class
Petrus 1975 : very bricky with red fruit . It is much different in style from the 82 for example . Very good but not great .
Petrus 1947 : a VanderMeulen bottle , bought direct and stored for ages in my friend’s cellar . Still dark color with fruity freshness .Black fruit . Very long and not all all showing its age . Very remarkable . A very very great wine . Did VDM add some Hermitage ? I think so but my friend Frans , who knew VDM , strongly disagrees .
By the way , we started the dinner with a white wine in a decanter , so served blind . It was a very big wine with a dominating taste of pine-apple . Tropical fruit and oak . My friends guessed a Rhone wine . It was the Marcassin 2013 Chardonnay ( Marcassin vineyard ) , a 100 point Parker wine … that he compares to CC from Coche . No way
And entertaining about the Marcassin. They won’t have much practical value for me, except perhaps for the white, but good to know someone is drinking these and what they are like.
Was your friend referring to the ageability of Lafleur over Petrus or that he enjoys it more than Petrus.
Or both?
I could see a lover of cab franc picking Lafleur over Petrus all day, without second guessing.
Great notes, thanks for sharing. Agree on the 1982 descriptor of power and class. My wine group did a 1982 horizontal blind tasting and the Petrus came out on top, it was voted slightly better than the 1982 Latour by the group. These 2 were the consensus first and second, in a strong set of wines including Mouton, Margaux, Haut-Brion, LMHB, Cheval Blanc.
Thanks for the notes Herwig, as usual your dinners amaze me. Where did you eat to accompany these delightful wines?
Also I very much appreciate the background and historical stories that Belgian Bordeaux collectors can still share. Petrus by the barrel!?!? Truly a different world!
Agree, although I struggle to understand the logistics of buying by the barrel as an individual back in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s, let alone the math. Petrus only produces 100 barrels per year (30,000 bottles), that’s not a lot of wine for the European market. I assume most of the barrels would go to importers/negociants to bottle for multiple customers, and a very few privileged individuals would get a whole barrel? That’s quite a big allocation, getting 1% of the annual production.
I can’t imagine taking delivery of a barrel of wine, then buying 300 bottles to fill, sulphur, cork and label by myself. I suppose these buyers were 1%'ers who had house staff to take care of all the logistics or more likely they just committed to a barrel and the negotiant took care of all the work from barrel to bottle. It would be pretty sweet to be able to drink Petrus as my house wine!
In my understanding, it was very common in the past for individuals to buy barrels of wine and bottle them. My dad did it twice when we were living in Belgium, once from Burgundy and once from Beaujolais. It’s likely those barrels came from negociants, but it’s not surprising that estates did it as well. There were lots of bottlers in those days so Petrus may not have seen an individual as any different than another independent bottler/reseller.
Nice Craig. How old were you? So did a truck show up and deposit a barrel on your driveway? Did you help your dad with The bottling, corking and labeling process? That would be a fun memory that I would cherish, now that I’m into wine myself.
I’m also curious if your dad got to select his barrel from the winemaker’s cellar? I’d want to make sure that I really like the wine if I’m in for a barrel!
My dad split the barrels with a friend. I’m quite sure they selected the barrel, but again, my guess is that it was a negociant and not the winemaker. I was probably around 10 at the time. I’m not sure how they took delivery.
Larry , Pomerol was not really known on a worldwide basis back in the fourties and fifties . Most Pomerol came to the north of Belgium : Flanders ( the south of Belgium =Wallonia , socialist country , is more focused on Burgundy ) . England and Switserland also knew Pomerol well .
The habit of buying barrels was very common . Of course , most of it was bought by local negotiants , not that many people bottled their own wine directly. The most known negotiant is Vander Meulen from Oostende but their were well over 100 Flemish negotiants who did this . ( and btw , they also bought barrels in Burgundy ) The additional advantage was that these negotiants actually went to Pomerol and choose their own barrels . I would assume they took the good ones .
But for rich families , this practise was common . It’s not that they drank Cheval Blanc every day . But many families had big dinner parties ( weddings , communions , dinners for a son or daugther who became a priest or nun , etc ) . Families were large so it was common to have dinner parties for 50 to 100 people . That’s where the wine was drunk . At my parents wedding , for example , they served Eglise Clinet .
Petrus production was smaller than others , thus the " prestige " was greater . It was always the most expensive one . It was probably twice the price of Cheval ( I am not sure ) but still only a few Dollars per bottle .
I don’t know how it was actually bottled at somebodies home . My friend told me his father-in-law bought a Petrus barrel and received the labels and corks from Petrus . I assume that they got help from somebody from the negotiant house to actually bottle . You can still find old bottles of Petrus with no label on it , my friend Jacques Thienpont once showed me a case of Petrus 1948 with no label ( it was on the cork ) .
Final remark : when you see magnums of old Petrus , I always wonder . Magnums were extremely uncommon , I have NEVER seen one from a Belgian negotiant. Of course , these days , you just don’t know . The chateau bottled a few , yes , but still .
My friend prefers Lafleur over Petrus , yes . It is more of an insider’s wine . Petrus was always very well known , Lafleur much less . My friend told me that when he visited Lafleur ( made by 2 sisters ) , there were ducks sitting on the barrels . It did not have much reputation at all . I think it was Robert Parker who " discovered " Lafleur for the worldwide market . Before , a lot of it was drunk here in the Flanders . Thye wine was always great , though . My friend bought 5 to 10 cases each good year , it was not expensive and that is how people bought wine those days ( fourties till seventies ) .
For my taste , Petrus is the bigger wine with more ageability , Lafleur more finesse with also great ageability . But I always preferred old Petrus over old Lafleur . He prefers the Lafleur . ( old VCC and Eglise clinet can be equally good , btw ) but he has more experience .
Herwig,
I love your reports and your comments. We do not always agree, but who cares.
My best ever Petrus was a magnum of 1950. And it was so great, associated with other very great wines that the doubt cannot exist about the genuineness of this legendary wine.
I have made a dinner with all the greatest 1947 Bordeaux, coming from my cellar. Lafleur was the greatest by far, and largely better than Petrus which was from a good bottle.
I have a special affection towards 1975 Petrus, which is not among the best Petrus, but gives me a lot of emotion since I drank it with Alexandre de Lur Saluces in Château d’Yquem who opened for us (friends of Yquem) a double magnum of 1975 Petrus. It seems that big volumes exist !
Jean Claude Berrouët had told me once : “1998 is not the most recognized Petrus, but for me it the wine that I always wanted to make”.
Congratulations for your interesting comments. Cheers !
I’ve always found it fascinating that these wines were relatively unknown compared to the Medoc, Graves and Sauternes back then. I’ve been lucky enough to have a few bottles from that late 40s from one of the first American collectors of Pomerol, and the quality from top estates was stunning.
In London , the oldest Petrus we had was a 1897 ! From magnum ! It was brought by the head of Christies Europe . It tasted really well . It’s so unfortunate that these days , you always wonder if the bottle is legit when tasting old wines .
( the Petrus 1961 and the 1949 were also from magnum ; they do exist but in small numbers , I would assume )