1975 Chateau Margaux

WINE TALK
1

From a stash of a couple of cases that have travelled around the country without the best care over the past several decades. I’ve, fortunately, had fairly good luck with these wines in spite of the abuse.

Low neck fill. Cork crumbled when opened with an ah-so, but heard the bottle “exhale” when the first part of the cork was removed, so I thought the seal remained solid.

The first ounce was not promising. Pretty bricky with a whiff of decay. SOM’ed/Audouzed it for 6 hours. I know some folks don’t believe in this, but wines often show well when I do it, so I continue to.

At dinner, clear garnet to the edge, with some bricking at the meniscus. No violets on the nose (one can hope), which was understated with some blackberries, cedar and a touch of aged forest floor. Subtle blackfruit compote on the palate, with fine, juicy acid backbone and almost fully resolved tannins, with a nice 30-45 second finish. Not a blockbuster, but a lovely fine, old claret. Very nice

2

Wow, sounds like slow oxygenation really DID do a good job! The wines From Ch. Margaux just prior to the first Menzelopolous vintage (1978) I’ve always thought underperformed. But it sounds like slow oxygenation yielded a fairly good result! This is exactly the sort of Bordeaux that I would suspect might work well with this approach - not too young and tannic, but rather fragile and almost failing perhaps!

3

Not to pick a fight with non-believers, but I agree that this wine was a prime candidate for SOM. Although it seemed kind of feeble when the cork was pulled, once poured this wine was not fragile at all. Strong color, medium body and drunk over 3 hours. I am becoming a believer that slowly exposing wines like this to oxygen may help it reach its apogee. I have found, personally, that I have had less success fully decanting or popping and pouring wines like this

4

With most wines that I have ever popped and poured, I have found the last 1/3 of the bottle to be significantly better than what came before! [head-bang.gif] And when the wine is quite fragile I think decanting will tend to push it OTH, introducing too much oxygen… But still, it’s very surprising that a “slow, lengthy” approach yields such a different, and better, result!

5

Hard for me to sign off on “better” result, since I don’t have control bottles (and at that age, there can typically be a lot of botle variation, even from the same case). I am totally satisfied with “good” or “excellent” results, though. [basic-smile.gif]

6

1975 and 1976 CM were available in the very past in Germany for “an apple and an egg” because lovely Bob Jr. scored a ‘74’ and - even better for pricing - a ‘70’ for the 76 CM. I bought what I could get.
No way around, both vintages of CM are not worth 1er Grand Cru, but much better than their reputations. I always sent (and still send) them for a 3 h swim in a magnum dekanter, which almost completely takes away that ‘primary’ gasoline smell both vintages tend to show right after popping the cork. Best bottles still are in the range of 88-90 P. today and give a lot of pleasure if one does not belong exclusively to the power-wine specialists.

7

Interesting. We had the 1975 Latour in June and it was DOA. Sone said oxidized but I thought it was just dead. I popped and poured because I was afraid it would go bad too fast.I have one bottle each left of the 1975 Lafite and two bottles of the Conseillante. Maybe I will try the SOM with them.

8

Jay,
this seems to be a result of bad storage conditions; even the 75 Les Forts de Latour still is quite attractive these days as far as I know.

9

David- very glad to see your TN, and also very grateful of your account of the bottle’s ullage etc.

First off- to take on the SOM, I use it for wines young and old and for vintages that are either old or potentially weak/problematic I think it is essential. I make a habit of tasting off-vintage Bordeaux (as in 1972-1974, 1965 etc.) when I find such bottles- and I do not even decant. I just pop and pour and keep close watch, sometimes for hours, until the wine has peaked and faded.

As for 1975 Chateau Margaux, I note with great interest your bottle has a low neck fill- and I wonder if that might also contribute to the positive showing you experienced relative to what many tasters report when trying this wine.

The 1970s for both Lafite and Margaux are a particular point of contention when talking about wine critique- especially Broadbent vs. Parker- and so I have focused on those wines from that era more than I might otherwise.

I can see where these two gentlemen differ on Lafite- and I personally do not care for the 1970, think the 1971 is perfectly lovely if slowly aired for at least an hour, and am a fan of 1975 and 1976. Generally speaking, I have found bottles to be sound with the difference of opinion being about what is inside the bottle.

Not so with Chateau Margaux. The 1975 in particular. In my appraisal work, I have come across 1975 Margaux many, many times. And all too often the bottles have failing corks and low to mid shoulder fills or worse. Looking back, I would say that on average 1975 Margaux I have examined have a mid shoulder fill. This is not exactly a complete examination of the entire population of extant bottles, but it is uniquely problematic in my overall experience. I can think of no other wine at the first growth level where I have seen so many examples with poor ullage and signs of leakage. It goes beyond possible importing issues.

I have a theory about this. We know that the former owners of Margaux were facing financial difficulties in the years leading up to the sale of the estate in the late 1970s. My own tasting experience also suggests the quality of the wines came up dramatically once taken over by the Mentzelopolous family- a sudden change that could not be attributed to better care in the vineyard alone (though that did come fully to be in the 1980s.) Additionally, once you get into the Mentzelopolous era, the issues with ullage and leaky corks stop.

As poorly made as the wine surely was at the time, I think cheap corks may have played a role in how 1975 (and the 1970 to a lesser extent) perform at the dinner table these days. The ullage rates and cork failure on bottles I have appraised is akin to very inexpensive crus bourgeois of the same era. All of my tasting experiences with this wine suggest very tired bottles- something that should not happen with a sturdy vintage like 1975. Sure, many 1975s are not that great- but tired and oxidised should not be a common problem just yet at the first growth level. 1975 Margaux is not a great wine, but I would sure love to try a few examples that have the ullage and cork condition one might expect.

Anyhow, yours is the first TN I have ever read for this wine on a wine forum where someone indicated they opened a bottle with acceptable ullage and had it come out pleasant to drink. And so I thank you. And if the rest of your bottles tend to have similar ullage, it may well be you lucked into a batch bottled with corks that have held up much better than is often the case.