I bought a bottle of ‘03 Lafite from a very reliable merchant. It was described as ‘ex-Château’. What I got surprised me. Everything about the bottle looked new: the bottle itself, label, and especially the fill, which is about a quarter inch from the cork. It has a curious hard plastic cover over the capsule with a French tax stamp on it. It is hard for me to believe that this bottle was resting at the Château for 20 years. Can someone explain what it is I have?
Thanks.
David Kubiak
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Would have been stored as a “shiner” and labelled and capsuled just before shipping - that’s quite standard.
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Why not post a picture?
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Every now and then I see something I somehow missed in this wine thing we do. Was not familiar with the term “shiner” until here (Thx) and the great Google enlightening me thereafter.
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I have some ex-chateaux '82 Ducru that were rebouché in 2011 and released in 2022. Nice shiny labels and no concern of TCA. I have an '00 ex-chateau Lynch (2021 release) on deck for tonight. When buying older stock it is nice to find stuff with this kind of provenance.
Forgive the kitchen picture. If the wine was just recently bottled where has it been kept for 20 years?
Thanks again to the experts.
It wasn’t recently bottled, may have been recorked and recently labelled, as William said above they store shiners in cellar and label as needed so the labels don’t rot in cellar or get dirty.
If ex-chateau release I have always understood that the bottles are stored at the Chateau and are released from their reserves. Typically a shiner as William Kelley commented above.
Enjoy the wine!
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I doubt they’d have recorked a 2003 and I’m pretty sure Lafite labels recorkings when they do it. The good fill is just because it’s been well-stored, that’s the way it should be. The French tax stamps on the other hand imply at least one European buyer between Lafite and the US importer.
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Maybe, but not necessarily. Sometimes those are applied to an entire lot when a producer is not sure how much will be sold in France versus outside.
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Even without a picture, everything you describe is 100% consistent with every ex-Chateau Lafite bottle I’ve ever seen. I was at Zachys when they did the 150th anniversary sale, so I got to see bottles all the way back to 1868!
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