TN: 1970 Ch. Latour (magnum)

I belong to a group of four wine aficionados who came together back in the 1980s with the purpose of acquiring bottles we wouldn’t or couldn’t afford individually and to do cellar buy-outs when the opportunity presented. Time has passed – we last did a dinner about 10 years ago – but we still had a few wines left to drink – a couple of vintages of grange and a pristine magnum of Ch. Latour that we have owned since 1994. We decided that it should now be in fine drinking condition and as this year was the 70 birthday year of a couple of the older members it seemed an opportune time to finally pop the Latour cork.

We tuned up with a fish course and a bottle of 2015 Chapoutier Crozes-Hermitage Blanc Les Meysonniers, pleasant but not profound. We followed with a mushroom lasagne course and started in on the Latour.

1970 Ch. Latour - I decanted into a magnum decanter and we let the decanter sit for an hour or so, and then we divided the wine equally between two single bottle decanters. When we first approached the wine, when we were decanting, it looked to be garnet in colour, but by the time we started pouring, it seemed darker. It started out with an adequate mushroom and earth nose, OK, but not quite what we had hoped for, and the finish was notably acidic. We set it aside to air and open up over another hour or so and the wine was transformed.

Two fundamental changes had occurred. The nose was far richer with sweet fruit and cedar and walnut hints with cassis showing up after a bit. The acidic perception on the finish totally disappeared and the wine now had excellent length. It didn’t vary from that over the hour or so thereafter as we slowly enjoyed it, reluctant to finish our glasses.

I think that the fact that the wine was in such excellent shape was largely due to the bottle size and expect that a single bottle would have been where this one is at maybe a decade ago, and would perhaps have shown as more elegant but also more aged and less vital. I think that we nailed the timing perfectly (although we’d been sitting around before I opened it saying (What if it is corked after all this time, or dead, or…” The angst of holding old wines. Couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome though. I checked the group’s cellar book and we had paid $600 Can, in 1994, so not cheap but probably fair.

Now I am wondering if our 1990 and 1991 Grange will be ready…

Wow!

Great note and thoughts.

Mmmm, Grange.

My/our tastes had changed over the years and I suggested that we consider selling or trading the Grange for a decent half case of older Bordeaux, but there were no local takers, plus anyone that would be interested was unlikely to have any claret to swap, so I think we’ve resigned ourselves to just drinking it ourselves. We did pick up a bottle of a John Duval white to go with them. It’s either that or I suggested we convert to a tontine (I’m the youngest member).

So where’s the score? Isn’t it all about the score?

Bill, glad it was a great bottle. About 10 years ago, I was given a magnum of ‘70 Latour as a Christmas gift by a very generous client. I decided to open it for my blind tasting group, where the custom is to bring 2 bottles each, usually with a theme. I opened it mid afternoon and decanted into 2 separate decanters. The initial sniff test showed it to be sound, but I was concerned that the decanters smelled so much alike that everyone would know it was the same wine. Over the next few hours, I’d sniff, and have the same concern. When we finally got around to pouring them, NO ONE guessed they were similar, and in fact were guessing ‘88 to ‘90 bdx. But 5 of the 11 tasters thought that decanter #1 was slightly corked, and that #2 was gorgeous. I had a hard time suppressing my laughter.

Chuck, I have had exactly the same experience in the past and no one would believe that they were the same wine! Fortunately both halves stayed the same in this case, but I still wonder what accounted for my other experience (with a different Bordeaux), Maybe something in the decanter, or…?