I recently took a flyer on purchasing this 1928 Piat Pere & Fils Nuits St Georges 1er Les Boudots. While somewhat expensive, it wasn’t bad considering this is nearly 100 years old. I took a calculated risk knowing that the fill looked good, color looked good, and the strong reputation of the 1928 burgundy and bordeaux vintage.
The previous owner bought it sometime in the past 20 years and stored it very carefully under perfect conditions. Prior to that it has apparently been stored in France and was imported. Given the good fill and colour I expect this to have been reconditioned somewhere along the line. Often I find reconditioned bottles show oddly young, or just poorly in general but somehow after some bottle age they seemingly can get better (?). I couldn’t find a whole lot on Piat as a producer other than they are a now defunct negotiant.
Here is a poor quality photo, but I do have it in hand and could take a better one when I get a sec to dig it out of the case its buried in.
Reconditioning feels like the **only explanation for a wine that old, that has less ullage than most bottles that have come off the bottling line this year! However who would have reconditioned it? It appears the (Bojo based company/brand) was bought out in the early 1970s, and subsequently ended up as a brand of drinks giant Diageo, and very much linked to ‘Le Piat d’or’ which sat alongside blue nun, hirondelle and black tower.
I’d be intrigued about how such old stock might have been discovered, and then the effort made to recondition it (and what with - they would have been just a brand?). It ought to be quite the story to achieve that from within a behemoth like Diageo.
Alternatively perhaps it is indeed original, but in which case, that is one absolutely amazing 100 year old short stubby cork, to have let no oxygen in whatsoever over the whole century.
** there is another, though it would itself be quite the story, that there are instances of wines being left / forgotten in barrel, only to be discovered and then bottled many decades after vintage.
The photo I posted is a picture of a picture so does look weird. This is what I was shown prior to inspecting and buying it myself. I do have the bottle in hand and can inspect more closely and take more pictures. The capsule seems fairly old and corroded and visually looks similar to the ones I’ve seen from the 60’s and 70’s. The cork, from the bottom looks fairly saturated. So any kind of recent reconditioning doesn’t make sense to me. If that were true I’d expect a newer looking cork and capsule. The bottle itself feels original to the period with a punt that has a flat surface inside, no markings or text protruding anywhere on the glass, and some uneven glass thickness at the base.
@Ian_Sutton I appreciate the background on what happened to the negotiant.
Indeed the fill being that high is suspicious. Here is my best guess. I expect this was back stock of the negotiant that was reconditioned in the 60’s or 70’s then sold at that time prior to or shortly after the sale to Diageo. If true this has me somewhat optimistic that this will show. The color looks great through the glass. Moderate bricking in the neck and clear transparent red through the middle.
@J_Dornellas I hear your pessimism, and this was a calculated risk. It could be dead. It could not show well. It could be a total fraud. But I need to find out.
I think the risk reward is based on the cost. You are going to have some fun with it, and it will be a real conversation centerpiece at a dinner, even if it is wrong.
Given the possibility of fun, but also the well founded reservations, I would figure around $200 would be about right.
Yes, it feels the only logical option for the timing of any reconditioning (or late bottling), yet does also mean that new cork has performed perfectly over the subsequent 50 years. That would indeed be remarkable.
However now this is a further thought. I had a dig around for the establishment of 1er cru, and according to this article in Decanter, it was as part of the introduction of appellation controllee in 1936, which post-dates the vintage. Now I’m no burg-geek, so there may be more to it than that, e.g. a late bottling / late release, might carry the appellation controlee wording, as this bottle does.
Regarding the cork holding up perfectly for the past ~50 years, of course that would be it holding up remarkably well, but by the same token I’ve had many 70s Bordeaux where the fill is into the neck, from original releases bought by the only owner on release. If the cork has a particularly tight seal and storage conditions are ideal I think this is fully plausible. I also don’t know how else to explain the corroded capsule, that seems consistent with what I’ve seen from 40-60 year old wines, yet such a high fill.
This is a picture of an identical wine. Label is also torn but in different locations. Similar looking capsule/cork condition. Seems to be from the same release and would fit the concept of a ~50 year old library release. In this case a fill that is a bit lower possibly due to a worse cork or worse storage/transport.
Interesting to see establishment of 1ers in 1936, but again it would be consistent with the concept that this was library stock of the negotiant. Bottles would be stored without labels. I’m fairly confident that when 1er or GC status is granted, that producers can use the term retroactively to back vintage stock.
@Mark_Golodetz - investment was higher than what you mention, but not egregiously so. Still feels worth it to satiate my curiosity.
The exception proving the rule, I recently came across a 90+ year old dessert wine that had been forgotten in barrel for 50 years due to a legal dispute. The estate had closed and no one even knew it was there.
Piat back in the day were quite a serious Romanèche-based négociant, that later became a cheap supermarket brand notorious for the so-called Piat d’Or red blend. However, they bottled e.g. 1964 Rousseau Chambertin in their more glorious days. I have a 1945 Griotte bottled by them in my cellar that has very similar label and capsule, likely from the same era.
As your surmise, this bottle would be a late release with a more recent label, likely recorked and topped off, in the 60s or 70s if I had to hazard a guess. If the bottle has been correctly stored it could still be very interesting, even if the usual doubts that apply to Burgundies of this era (what was added, what was it topped up with etc?) will still apply.
Another thing that supports the reconditioning theory is that the cork looks quite short. It’s hard to think a short cork could have held that fill for a century.
