What exactly did you want to know about the bottle? I’m not sure I can tell you everything you need to know but I can say that it was bottled before we started putting the vintage on the label so it is very old and probably no longer drinkable.
Regards,
"
So…this bottle is older than 1936(the first vintage GdL)?? I just thought that was a weird response for one, not really knowing what NV is, and two, saying the wine is probably no longer drinkable because it’s very old!
Oh and I found something from about 5 years ago from a tasting of old CA wine:
1970 BV Burgundy Pure Altar Wine. (Really, altar wine.) This was sent by Dick Petersen, BVs winemaker after Andre Tchelistcheff. Dick made the wine though I doubt he blessed it. Dick got sick and couldn’t make the tasting (I was so looking forward to picking Dick up at his hotel and talking to him). The wine was made from mostly Napa Gamay and Mondeuse with about 10% Pinot grown at BV Ranches 2 & 3 with some from the Silverado area. Most of the acreage has since been sold to Andy Beckstoffer who ripped up the vines. Can’t imagine why. Alive and 85 pts but 95 just for being alive and interesting
I was told that the Altar wine was the same as the one labeled just Burgundy. So maybe Napa Gamay, Mondeuse and Pinot. Killer combination.
Chris is more knowledgeable than me, I expect, as these older bottlings confuse me. The oldest BV “Burgundy” I have in my cellar is 1968 (some labeled “Burgundy” and some “Special Burgundy”). There may be older ones, but I haven’t come across them myself.
Often I hear people talking about 1940s BV “Burgundy,” but I think they might mean the “Pinot Noir.” I opened the '46, '47 and if memory serves '45 Pinot Noir bottlings…two bottles were amazing, two very good, and two disappointing. I believe there are some earlier Pinot Noir bottles (early 40s) but haven’t come across those either.
I guess that’s a long way of saying I don’t really know. My best guess would be mid-60s. And I like Chris’ guesses on the possible grapes…I wish more winemakers still experimented with blends like that today.
With that fill, it should be fun to find out! I’ve tried most of the BV Pinot bottlings from the 60s, and some were surprisingly pleasant even in off/non-heralded vintages.
I remember referring to the BV Beautour with someone from the winery in the early 2000s and they’d never heard of it, even though that label/bottling had only ceased a few years earlier. She plainly had no knowledge of the winery’s even recent history. So I’m not surprised at the response you got. It’s just a business now.
Beaulieu has long been terrible with customer contact experience.
Around 2000, when TCA problems were apparent at its winery, I asked a representative of
its parent company about what it might do, when customers find that bottlings, such as
Georges de Latour Private Reserve, are often tainted. She did not dispute the TCA taint,
but blew off the topic, saying that most customers would be too ignorant to notice or care.