Opening a 1982 Mouton tonight. A bucket list wine for me that I haven’t tried before.
Curious to get recommendations on decant time. Cellar Tracker is all over the place. With some suggesting PnP, to quick decant, to a couple of hours.
Perfect fill and capsule, Milton S Kronheim DC import label. Shipped by Vintex. If that helps.
Logical answer is, open it, taste it and wait accordingly ; but like pringles, sometimes when I pop I can’t stop; and want to make sure I get the most out of it.
Current plan is to decant and leave for about an hour before starting to consume.
Decant for sediment and enjoy. I bought mine on release and they need some air. I would not decant for air anything this old, purchased on the secondary market, especially from a gray market importer.
We had a couple of bottles in 2022 for my 40th and they needed air. I would never open an important wine right before you want to serve it, because if it needs air, you’re stuck.
I like to open about 3pm and sniff. You can usually tell right away if it’s wide open for business or going to be a bit tight. Then, unless it smells over, I like to decant into a narrow decanter with a lid, then taste. If it’s good, cap off the decanter and put it back in the cellar until dinner. It will be fine. If it needs more air, you could always re-decant into a wider decanter.
People are so afraid of giving these older wines air, but honestly the only time air ruins the wine is when the wine was already DOA. Sure, if you PnP a DOA wine you might eeek 15-30 min of enjoyment out of the bottle, but so what? If you think the wine is sound, why punish yourself and end up finding the last sips are the best and wishing you had decanted earlier?
1982 Château Mouton Rothschild - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac (5/3/2024)
It came kicking and screaming out of the bottle. Very acidic, but you could taste the potential for when it would unfurl. 30 mins in decanter and the nose started to open up with notes of blackberry cassis and coffee. After 45 mins I took the first sip. It had a real smell and taste of pencil shaving, and deep dark fruits in the finish, but it was still a bit light on the palette. But it was showing promise. Good things to come. 90 mins after opening it really began to blossom. Truffle, tobacco and mushroom , and earthy pepper underpinning the dark fruit with red fruits bursting through. Long cigar notes on the finish. Would say the wine was at peak 2.5 hours post decant.
Very, very impressive wine; and glad to have ticked off a bucket list wine, but to my palette it’s on the same level as as something like a 1989 Lynch Bages at 40% of the cost.
If this bottle has good provenance it is one of the all time great wines.
I’ve had it close to 2 dozen times and strongly suggest after the last bottle to decant about an hour or so and then begin to enjoy.Hope your bottle provides you with much pleasure
Now I may have a less sophisticated palette, or just am newer to the world of fine wine, so take my opinion as you will.
Lynch Bages is often referred to as the poor man’s mouton, and in most vintages I would be inclined to agree. However 1989 is an exception, where some critics actually rated LB above most of the first growths.
The tasting notes of critics have many similar notes:
Cigar, tobacco, smoke, cedar, leafy red fruits etc.
The biggest difference to me is the spice in the Mouton which was a bit more pronounced than in the Lynch. I identified it as pepper, but seems professional tasters refer to it as Asian spice.
And so to my mind a $400 LB ‘89 is incredibly close in quality to the ‘82 Mouton.
The point I was making (and more for myself than people reading the note) is that I think the ‘89 LB is to my taste a similar quality wine. Of course there are differences. However at $1K for an ‘82 Mouton or $400 for an ‘89 LB, I would probably gravitate to having 2.5 bottles of the ‘89 Lynch.
It is a very fair comparison. While I love that 82 Mouton, I’d rather have a couple top CGs from the 1980s as well. LLC, Lalande, Lynch, Montrose. A couple years ago I had that 82 Mouton side by side with the LLC, and that night, the LLC edged it. Now at other times, I have also scored that 82 Mouton a solid 100.
1982s were cheap as futures but already expensive by the time 1989 futures came out. The 82 Mouton was probably selling for around $80 in 1990 when 89 Lynch Bages was under $30 EP.
When I came out of law school in 1992, these Bordeaux were all over the retail shelves. I distinctly recall getting the 89 and 90 Lynch, and the 89 Baron, for $40 per. The 90 Latour was $100. Was a lot of money to me back then but we knew we were buying special stuff. And like fools, I drank them way too fast!
After the last bottle, there are no more bottles. Someone just offered to share this at an upcoming dinner, and he is a Pnp guy, usually drinking young Napa wines.
enjoy.Hope your bottle provides you with much pleasure 