Looks pristine but low shoulder and no signs of past seepage…Where did all that wine go?
http://www.winecommune.com/lot.cfm/wine/1934-Chateau-Mouton-Rothschild-Bordeaux/lotID/11056007.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I say real. the ullage, albeit not perfect or attractive, could be consistent with a 75 year old wine. Should have been recorked somewhere in those years tho. I remember perfect '34 Lafites at Sherry Lehmans years back that look quite suspect due to this perfect fill and label. Alas I found out from Michael Aaron himself they were relabelled and recorked. $250 should have been a no-brainer, but it was 1983
i used to live in Fairhope, AL. bottle looks perfect and ullage seems reasonable though you don’t want a bottle that was passively stored in Baldwin Co, AL for ANY length of time.
i have a buddy sending me a 1966 Haut Brion with 3-4 cm of ullage and i told him that seems excessive for a bottle under 50 years of age.
I’m very leery of wines that are below the neck, I’ve generally have bad luck with them.
Just buy it and we’ll take it down in NYC together.
I’d be down to experimentally try it. Always the best way to mitigate risk on these things.
Then only use the orifice above your neck! ![[tease.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/c/c5b32b76bebaa359b0452ae247b61189ffe5fa7e.gif "tease"){kind=small}
For relatively young wines, this is probably a good strategy For older wines, however, I’ve found the converse…I am leery of wines with fills into the neck. Generally, this indicates one of two things: (1) the wine has been topped off and recorked, or (2) the wine may be a fake. To be clear, I am just talking about old wines. My best bottles of Burgundy, Bordeaux and California wines from the 40s (or earlier) generally have fills around the mid-shoulder (some higher, some lower…but very rarely into the neck).
Now topping off and recorking isn’t a crime. In fact, it’s a service many firms used to offer to their clients and something many chateaux did with their own bottles. But when I drink an older wine, I like to experience the purity of that vintage of that wine, even if it is less youthful than topped bottles, because I generally find it more nuanced. Even if it is not possible to read the cork through the bottle, I feel I’ve developed a decent handle on telling whether a wine has been diluted based on the fill level, the color and clarity of the wine, and the type and amount of sediment.
Anyway, I’m rambling on. Just wanted to say that mid-shoulder ullage is not unusual (and, in fact, may be quite authentic) for a bottle of Bordeaux 50 or more years old.
Cheers!
Yea but what are the chances of it being good?
Probably the same as a similarly stored bottle with a low neck fill.
What Frank said.
An into the neck fill for a 1920’s Bordeaux is much more of a concern for me than a mid-shoulder fill for the same wine.
As far as the odds of a low fill wine being shot, yes the odds are higher than if it were a top shoulder fill of the same wine due to the increased surface area contact with oxygen and the higher potential of a faulty cork.
Fill alone however is not a good indicator of the “life” left to a wine. Color and clarity are significantly better indicators.
Those are some good points, and that’s why I would be unlikely to flush money down the drain on an Internet auction of old wine where I can’t assess the color and clarity of the wine in the bottle.
Bruce
and… a 0 feedback seller
excellent point. without the ability to do your own, in-person evaluation, its a roll of the dice. im less concerned about the fill level as ive had many great old bordeaux with low fills… but not that had really poor color. the last being a '59 latour last nov, with a shoulder fill… it was sublime. the other issue of course is shipping and delivery. if its not been re-corked, that in itself is a risky proposition. i currently have several old bordeaux that have lost their battle with holding on to their corks, and the only thing left is the seal the capsule has made with the top of the bottle, holding back the flood of modern globally warmed up air…
What Ray and Frank said.
Ullage is a natural result of age. I imagine it has something to do with the solids precipitating out into sediment. Since solids are denser than liquids, that will increase the space between liquid and cork. Perhaps slow evaporation through the cork is also a factor though I’m not sure that has ever been proven to occur. In the case of the '66 Haut Brion mentioned above, 3-4cm is totally normal and even less ullage than other bottles of Haut Brion I’ve had of similar age that drank pristinely.
Regardless, I wouldn’t and don’t buy anything from winecommune.
You can’t be serious, but it appears you are. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. There are a dozen ways I could think of to refute that, but maybe the simplest is asking if you have ever seen a bottle of white wine with a very low fill? If so, where are the ‘solids’ that have precipitated out to cause this low fill? Tartaric acid doesn’t count.
It’s evaporation and/or seepage that cause ullage.
Did someone just repeal the law of conservation of mass? And if so, why was I not notified?
Bruce
Hey Ray, I’ve just read about these old bottles, never had one and since you always seem to be drinking this geriatric stuff, you probably know the answer. I get ullage and color (if im right in my assumption that you want a darker color) but what about clarity? Is it better for the wine to be more or less clear? Im guessing its better for it to be clearer, and if thats right, what is it about a bad wine that makes it cloudy? And as a follow up question if there is some particulate that makes bad old wine cloudy, wouldnt it settle to the bottom if you stand the bottle up long enough?
TIA, just curious.
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