How would we rate 1982 Bordeaux if they were released today?

[Mark_Golodetz]

At one stage, the Bordelais were so strapped for cash, many sold their whole production for the year to negotiants at a knock down price.

Clarence Dillon bought Haut Brion in the 1930s. It wasn’t until well into the 1950s, it turned a profit.

[John_Telford]

I took a second mortgage on my home to buy ‘82 Bordeaux and bought almost 100 cases. They have provided me with 40 years of drinking pleasure, with more…


You are my HERO!

[Jerry_Hey]

I bought 82s on release and sold a bottle of Cheval Blanc to Mark Golodetz a few years ago. He can attest to the attributes a pristine bottle has. Mouton, Lafite, Cheval, Margaux, and others have all been in great shape over the years and I still have a few assorted cases to taste.

[William_Kelley]

I am under the vague impression that a long, long time ago - in the 19th century - Bordeaux first growths had very long oak elevage, as in many years. When did this change? And what kind of oak was this?

It was generally Baltic oak. The move to French oak was contemporaneous with the move to more and more Cabernet Sauvignon, in the mid-19th century.

Élevage was typically four years or so before the Second World War, with multiple rackings. But élevage in most major wine regions was generally quite a bit longer (unless the wine was sold in barrel to be served in bars etc of course, Beaujolais “Nouveau” being just one example of a wine that was traditionally consumed that way). Longer élevage, racking and fining was the only way to stabilize and clarify wines before the arrival of more sophisticated filtration technology in the post war period.

Didn’t they also often have more difficulty selling wine in those days and often did not bottle until they had a customer (not sure if this was earlier 20th century or 19th century or both). Could make for the same wine tasting different as I understand it depending on when it was bottled.

That surely happened, but the fact that the first growths did longer élevage than other estates suggests it was considered desirable for quality reasons. A lot of the stories put about to criticize long élevage (“they only did that because they couldn’t sell the wine”, “the wines dry out and loose their fruit” etc) strike me as a way to justify bottling earlier, which just happens to be great for cash flow.

[Doug_Hein]

Were you buying wines in 1983? What 1982 Bordeaux futures did you buy? How did the prices relate to salaries at the time? How did the prices relate to prices for comparable California Cabernet? To older Bordeaux vintages at the time? What happened to Bordeaux prices how quickly over the months fight after futures prices came out and to what extent? Who was buying Bordeaux futures in 1983?

Slightly off-topic, but … I was a junior in college in 1983, and I wish I had been buying Bordeaux! On the other hand, I was buying exceptional California cabs for similar, very affordable prices (a bottle or two at a time). And they didn’t taste like Napa cab today. Then I stopped drinking wine for a long time. When I got back into wine in the 90’s, Napa was much different than I remembered and not in a way that appealed to me. I thought maybe my memory was faulty, then I started reading about the changes in wine-making that had occurred over the years. I started drinking Spanish wines, and then Bordeaux, and the light-bulb went on! The smell and taste of Bordeaux reconnected me to those 70’s vintages of Napa cabs: Heitz, Mondavi, Beaulieu, Inglenook, Freemark Abbey, etc. The “Rutherford dust” combined with hints of eucalyptus, sage and mint.

Now I gotta pay the big Bordeaux bucks to get that experience. In this regard, price does intertwine with history in that I was similarly able to buy excellent wines and develop a taste for such because of affordability. Had I not had that experience, I’d probably be content drinking Ménage à Trois California Blend on ice and saving a lot of money!

[Eric_Ifune]

Howard, I agree with you.
I was a poor student when the 1982’s came out. But was still able to buy cases of La Lagune and Gloria. Less than $100/case.

[Jurgen_Steinke]

I did not taste Bordeaux from barrel. Few people did. But I bought the wines when they were bottled and on the market. It was not difficult to buy them 3 or 5 or even 8 years later. In those times people thought Bordeaux always taste harsh as long as the wines are young. The 1982 (and the 1985, 1990) were very different. They were delicious as young wines. I remember drinking cases of 1982 Lanessan, Les Ormes de Pez, Gloria etc. in the late 80th. And I bought another case when the former was empty. These wine were still cheap. Even the Grands Crus were accessible as young wines. This was something very unusual and confusing even for some critics. What to do with these wines? I remember a talk to a rather old Sommelier who told me that the 1982, 1985 and 1990 Bordeaux were not the Bordeaux he was familiar with because they are “sweet”.

I love(d) the 1982, 1985 and 1990. I love the 2009, 2010, 2015 too. And I think most vintages of the last 10 years (with the exception of the 2013) are superior to most of what was produced 20 years ago.

[Jeff_Leve]

I am under the vague impression that a long, long time ago - in the 19th century - Bordeaux first growths had very long oak elevage, as in many years. When did this change? And what kind of oak was this?

It was generally Baltic oak. The move to French oak was contemporaneous with the move to more and more Cabernet Sauvignon, in the mid-19th century.

Élevage was typically four years or so before the Second World War, with multiple rackings. But élevage in most major wine regions was generally quite a bit longer

Hi William

May I ask where you read about the use of Baltic oak in Bordeaux? That is not my understanding, especially in the 19th century. I think that French oak was used in Bordeaux since Roman times. Acacia, Chene & Chataigner being used most often. I am not sure why they would ship wood from other countries to Bordeaux when they had local forests.

As for elevage times in Bordeaux, I imagine it varied depending on how fast the wines were sold and when they were picked up by the negociants in the 19th century and unless a chateau was bottling their own wine, that would be true for the first half of the 20th century.

However, I will ask on one of my Zoom calls today, in case they know as it is an interesting subject.

[Marcu_Stanley]

Jeff, one thing you have to understand is the importance of price to the fondness so many people of my generation have for 1982 Bordeauxs

Memories are great. But so what? The same point can be made by oldsters who purchased cases of 1961 First Growth for about $120 per case. Homebuyers that bought houses for 10% of what they cost today, Bitcoin at .8, etc. It is not a relevant statistic, except as a memory.

Sometimes, when you weren’t there and you really have no idea what you are talking about, it is best to stay quiet. I guarantee you that the 1961 Bordeauxs were more expensive than the surrounding vintages. However, the 1982s were cheaper than 1978s and 1979s (and older vintages) on the market in large part because the dollar then was unbelievably strong and they were much cheaper than the vintages that followed (because Bordeaux producers felt they left money on the table with the 1982s). Ask anyone who actually participated, it was not like anything else in my lifetime in any wine region.

Thanks for this Howard. I had no idea the 1982s felt like such a pricing anomaly when they came out and afterwards. It is very difficult to reconstruct the timing of prices from historical data alone and the testimony of people there at the time who were experiencing these changes as they occurred is invaluable.

[Marcu_Stanley]

The comparisons of 2016 and 1982 seem weird to me. 2016 seems like a very good vintage but not a historic one. How many people would confidently say that the 2016s stand head and shoulders above 2009, 2010, 2015, 2018, and 2019? To say nothing of 2000 and 2005. As I understand it 1982 was just “special” and new in a way 2016 doesn’t seem to be.

[William_Kelley]

Hi William

May I ask where you read about the use of Baltic oak in Bordeaux? That is not my understanding, especially in the 19th century. I think that French oak was used in Bordeaux since Roman times. Acacia, Chene & Chataigner being used most often. I am not sure why they would ship wood from other countries to Bordeaux when they had local forests.

As for elevage times in Bordeaux, I imagine it varied depending on how fast the wines were sold and when they were picked up by the negociants in the 19th century and unless a chateau was bottling their own wine, that would be true for the first half of the 20th century.

However, I will ask on one of my Zoom calls today, in case they know as it is an interesting subject.

I thought that this was quite well known.

You can find references to it in Penning Rowsell (p. 100 of the 1973 edition), Coates (Finest Châteaux, p. 55), Asher (The Pleasures of Wine, p. 67, who cites correspondence in Latour’s archives concerning the fact that the English market didn’t like French oak), Foulke’s history of Château Latour at p. 128 (where he observes that Stettin oak was used for the top wine and local oak for the lesser wine), etc etc. If you search on the internet you will find plenty of information. Paul Draper even cited some Bordeaux trials with regard to oak of different provenance when justifying his decision not to use French oak at Ridge.

If you consider the fact that, on the one hand Baltic oak was considered superior; and on the other that Bordeaux is a large maritime hub, and that transporting wood by water would have been less laborious in the first half of the 19th-century than transporting it by land, it is not so surprising.

[Julian_Marshall]

The comparisons of 2016 and 1982 seem weird to me. 2016 seems like a very good vintage but not a historic one. How many people would confidently say that the 2016s stand head and shoulders above 2009, 2010, 2015, 2018, and 2019? To say nothing of 2000 and 2005. As I understand it 1982 was just “special” and new in a way 2016 doesn’t seem to be.

Well yes! One was a game-changer, the other was not. One was (even at the time) likely to go up in price, one is not. Who can say whether or not 2016 will be considered “better” than the others in ten, twenty or thirty years from now - or the countless other good vintages yet to come, probably starting with the 2020? 1982 was released with limited fanfare onto a limited market which really needed a great vintage, 2016 was released with much fanfare onto a global market that could perhaps be considered as saturated. Whether or not one considers 2016 to be “as good” as 1982 depends also on taste, as always, but I fail to see anything making it the bombshell that 1982 was.

[Jeff_Leve]

Hi William

May I ask where you read about the use of Baltic oak in Bordeaux? That is not my understanding, especially in the 19th century. I think that French oak was used in Bordeaux since Roman times. Acacia, Chene & Chataigner being used most often. I am not sure why they would ship wood from other countries to Bordeaux when they had local forests.

As for elevage times in Bordeaux, I imagine it varied depending on how fast the wines were sold and when they were picked up by the negociants in the 19th century and unless a chateau was bottling their own wine, that would be true for the first half of the 20th century.

However, I will ask on one of my Zoom calls today, in case they know as it is an interesting subject.

I thought that this was quite well known.

You can find references to it in Penning Rowsell (p. 100 of the 1973 edition), Coates (Finest Châteaux, p. 55), Asher (The Pleasures of Wine, p. 67, who cites correspondence in Latour’s archives concerning the fact that the English market didn’t like French oak), Foulke’s history of Château Latour at p. 128 (where he observes that Stettin oak was used for the top wine and local oak for the lesser wine), etc etc. If you search on the internet you will find plenty of information. Paul Draper even cited some Bordeaux trials with regard to oak of different provenance when justifying his decision not to use French oak at Ridge.

If you consider the fact that, on the one hand Baltic oak was considered superior; and on the other that Bordeaux is a large maritime hub, and that transporting wood by water would have been less laborious in the first half of the 19th-century than transporting it by land, it is not so surprising.

No, the info is not widely known. In fact, before I posted, I asked one of my go-to sources for history on Bordeaux about it, and it was his view that only French oak was used. He is usually spot on. I’ve double-checked his info on occasion and I have not yet found him to be inaccurate.

I just finished a Zoom with Ducru Beaucaillou for their 2018. I asked them about the subject. They say most of the oak used in the past, (prior to WW2 and in the 19th century) was French, though some oak was from Hungary. They added, the source of the wood was not important, so records on the topic were not kept. I find it an interesting subject and will ask around over the next few weeks.

[Jeff_Leve]

2016 seems like a very good vintage but not a historic one. How many people would confidently say that the 2016s stand head and shoulders above 2009, 2010, 2015, 2018, and 2019? To say nothing of 2000 and 2005.

A lot, and probably the majority of critics who have tasted widely find 2016 to be the best of the vintages mentioned.

[William_Kelley]

Hi William

May I ask where you read about the use of Baltic oak in Bordeaux? That is not my understanding, especially in the 19th century. I think that French oak was used in Bordeaux since Roman times. Acacia, Chene & Chataigner being used most often. I am not sure why they would ship wood from other countries to Bordeaux when they had local forests.

As for elevage times in Bordeaux, I imagine it varied depending on how fast the wines were sold and when they were picked up by the negociants in the 19th century and unless a chateau was bottling their own wine, that would be true for the first half of the 20th century.

However, I will ask on one of my Zoom calls today, in case they know as it is an interesting subject.

I thought that this was quite well known.

You can find references to it in Penning Rowsell (p. 100 of the 1973 edition), Coates (Finest Châteaux, p. 55), Asher (The Pleasures of Wine, p. 67, who cites correspondence in Latour’s archives concerning the fact that the English market didn’t like French oak), Foulke’s history of Château Latour at p. 128 (where he observes that Stettin oak was used for the top wine and local oak for the lesser wine), etc etc. If you search on the internet you will find plenty of information. Paul Draper even cited some Bordeaux trials with regard to oak of different provenance when justifying his decision not to use French oak at Ridge.

If you consider the fact that, on the one hand Baltic oak was considered superior; and on the other that Bordeaux is a large maritime hub, and that transporting wood by water would have been less laborious in the first half of the 19th-century than transporting it by land, it is not so surprising.

No, the info is not widely known. In fact, before I posted, I asked one of my go-to sources for history on Bordeaux about it, and it was his view that only French oak was used. He is usually spot on. I’ve double-checked his info on occasion and I have not yet found him to be inaccurate.

I just finished a Zoom with Ducru Beaucaillou for their 2018. I asked them about the subject. They say most of the oak used in the past, (prior to WW2 and in the 19th century) was French, though some oak was from Hungary. They added, the source of the wood was not important, so records on the topic were not kept. I find it an interesting subject and will ask around over the next few weeks.

I suppose it’s possible that all of those books are wrong. Perhaps the régisseur of Latour in the 1840s was wrong, too.

[crickey]

The comparisons of 2016 and 1982 seem weird to me. 2016 seems like a very good vintage but not a historic one. How many people would confidently say that the 2016s stand head and shoulders above 2009, 2010, 2015, 2018, and 2019? To say nothing of 2000 and 2005. As I understand it 1982 was just “special” and new in a way 2016 doesn’t seem to be.

A number of people/critics believe 2016 to be one of the greats. After the Southwold 2016 tasting, at least one of the tasters thought that 2016 would be cited along with 1961 as one of the all-time great vintages.

[Jeff_Leve]

I thought that this was quite well known.

You can find references to it in Penning Rowsell (p. 100 of the 1973 edition), Coates (Finest Châteaux, p. 55), Asher (The Pleasures of Wine, p. 67, who cites correspondence in Latour’s archives concerning the fact that the English market didn’t like French oak), Foulke’s history of Château Latour at p. 128 (where he observes that Stettin oak was used for the top wine and local oak for the lesser wine), etc etc. If you search on the internet you will find plenty of information. Paul Draper even cited some Bordeaux trials with regard to oak of different provenance when justifying his decision not to use French oak at Ridge.

If you consider the fact that, on the one hand Baltic oak was considered superior; and on the other that Bordeaux is a large maritime hub, and that transporting wood by water would have been less laborious in the first half of the 19th-century than transporting it by land, it is not so surprising.

No, the info is not widely known. In fact, before I posted, I asked one of my go-to sources for history on Bordeaux about it, and it was his view that only French oak was used. He is usually spot on. I’ve double-checked his info on occasion and I have not yet found him to be inaccurate.

I just finished a Zoom with Ducru Beaucaillou for their 2018. I asked them about the subject. They say most of the oak used in the past, (prior to WW2 and in the 19th century) was French, though some oak was from Hungary. They added, the source of the wood was not important, so records on the topic were not kept. I find it an interesting subject and will ask around over the next few weeks.

I suppose it’s possible that all of those books are wrong. Perhaps the régisseur of Latour in the 1840s was wrong, too.

I didn’t say they were wrong. I said I did not know about it and that the topic was interesting enough that I would ask around. I started with the owner of Ducru because we were set to taste together anyway. It is a cool subject as I enjoy learning about the history of wine regions I follow.

Was Baltic oak only used at Latour or at other chateau?

[William_Kelley]

No, the info is not widely known. In fact, before I posted, I asked one of my go-to sources for history on Bordeaux about it, and it was his view that only French oak was used. He is usually spot on. I’ve double-checked his info on occasion and I have not yet found him to be inaccurate.

I just finished a Zoom with Ducru Beaucaillou for their 2018. I asked them about the subject. They say most of the oak used in the past, (prior to WW2 and in the 19th century) was French, though some oak was from Hungary. They added, the source of the wood was not important, so records on the topic were not kept. I find it an interesting subject and will ask around over the next few weeks.

I suppose it’s possible that all of those books are wrong. Perhaps the régisseur of Latour in the 1840s was wrong, too.

I didn’t say they were wrong. I said I did not know about it and that the topic was interesting enough that I would ask around. I started with the owner of Ducru because we were set to taste together anyway. It is a cool subject as I enjoy learning about the history of wine regions I follow.

Was Baltic oak only used at Latour or at other chateau?

It was widely used at the top properties as I understand it. Perhaps most definitively, look at Pijassou, Médoc: vignes et vignerons (1990), p. 17: “First growths and second wines were kept in new heartwood oak casks made at the château by the master cooper and his men out of […] pieces of Baltic oak from Lübeck, Stettin, Riga, and Danzig”.

Finnigan’s Essentials of Wine also quotes (p. 23) Ronald Barton to the effect that “Bordeaux estates typically favored Baltic oak” before WWI.

[P_L_owet]

I suppose it’s possible that all of those books are wrong. Perhaps the régisseur of Latour in the 1840s was wrong, too.

Well, to be fair, that régisseur must be quite old today, so he may have a faulty memory.

Great stuff, thanks.
Peter

[Marcu_Stanley]

The comparisons of 2016 and 1982 seem weird to me. 2016 seems like a very good vintage but not a historic one. How many people would confidently say that the 2016s stand head and shoulders above 2009, 2010, 2015, 2018, and 2019? To say nothing of 2000 and 2005. As I understand it 1982 was just “special” and new in a way 2016 doesn’t seem to be.

A number of people/critics believe 2016 to be one of the greats. After the Southwald 2016 tasting, at least one of the tasters thought that 2016 would be cited along with 1961 as one of the all-time great vintages.

Critics say this stuff like every other year now, and have for a while. 2016 was at least the fifth “greatest vintage since 1961/82” since the year 2000. Granted critics do infinitely more tasting than a typical consumer like me, but I give basically zero credibility to critical claims of “best ever vintage” blah blah blah at this point. It’s all hype. We’ll have a better sense of things in a decade, and even then we’ll still be debating.

Granted I’m a typical consumer and not a critics, and so have tasted only a couple of 2016s, but nothing in my own tasting experience makes 2016 stand out from the nonstop parade of AMAZING HISTORIC BEST EVER vintages we have seen over the past 15 years.

TBH I feel burned by 2010, the previous “greatest vintage ever”, which I found to be flawed in a number of ways.