Aged Cabs versus Bordeaux

WINE TALK
1

I recently got together with some others at Peking Duck House, NYC to compare blind some aged Bordeaux and Cabs. We had three flights all blind and I did my best to pair the French wine with the American.

Flight One
1983 Diamond Creek Cabernet: Candied fruit and very much still alive

1985 Cos D’Estournel: Rather bland and muted in flavor, mustiness and then smoke arose. Took a bit of time to open up but it really just seemed tired

Flight two
1997 Heitz martha’s: Great fruit and chocholate flavors. My favorite of the flight

1991 Heitz Martha’s: decent fruit but then fell a little, not impressed

1990 Ch LaGrange: good fruit and nice balance with the tannins, decent but needed more time to open up

flight three
1998 Andrew Will Ciel Du Cheval: Great fruit and very nice when poopped and poured

1996 Pavie Macquin: Another great balance, took some to time to come around. Needed to decant and has plenty of life ahead of it.

1999 Renaissance Cabernet: Not impressed

Two additional wines that we poured were the 2005 Ch Greysac and a 1997 DeLille. The Greysac was downright bad, perhaps an off bottle, the DeLille was much better.

I was more impressed with the 1983 Diamond Creek and Martha’s. The Bordeaux with the exception of the Cos needed more time to come around while the Cali Cabs were great upon popping and pouring

2

1998 Andrew Will Ciel Du Cheval: Great fruit and very nice when poopped and poured

Pooped and poured. Hmm, better on the nose or palate?

We opened a 1996 Andrew Will last week and loved it. Those wines really need some time.

3

Popped, damn my typing skills

4

Interesting report. What did you learn? [basic-smile.gif]

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i was afraid that you were going to ask that. Cali Cabs showed better in this tasting than Bordeaux, there I said it. [suicide.gif]

6

Fair enough.

I’d wish you had just slightly more controls like vintage (age), types (left bank, right bank), or contrasts (blends vs. pure cabs), but a good job nonetheless.
[basic-smile.gif]

7

My take over the years is that I prefer Cali Cabs in the 5-15 year window and Bord in the 15> window. I find the aromatic complexity of aged Bords hard to beat, but I have no data points for Cali Cabs over 20 years so my experience has a hole. I do not think that Cali Cabs change as much as Bords do during the aging process, but my data is incomplete.

Now, if someone wants to educate me with some older Cabs…I am all for it [dance-clap.gif]

8

Bob, just head out to The Castle Restaurant. Very reasonable prices on 20+ year old Cali Cabs (and like-aged Bordeaux).

We should do an offline there some time soon.

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I’m in. [cheers.gif]

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Funny, I have been saying this for years. It is out in east bum f’ck on Rte 9. God forbid the Bean town weenies drive past Rte 495 neener

Jimmy has a deep German cellar. I know he has Bords also. That cellar is cold with the stone walls and lake out back.

11

Outside of 128 is barely possible, never mind 495…