TN: 1953 Château Margaux (France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Margaux)

WINE TALK
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  • 1953 Château Margaux - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Margaux (12/3/2013)
    My gosh, this was still alive and really quite nice. I popped and poured into a decanter to settle the wine and pretty much drank the whole bottle during Thanksgiving meal. The wine started cloudy, but had fresh scents of forest floor, tobacco leaves, cedar, and lovely aged mellow red fruit, and a little spice cake perception. After about 45 minutes the wine woke up from the air and the clouds actually lessened. In the mouth the red fruit still had some sweet perceptions, and gave up pretty Autumnal red fruit and spice. There was a slight drying cedar taste, but it wasn’t too much and didn’t take away from the wine- picture an older version of 1983 Lafite, in terms of the cedar.

Posted from CellarTracker

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Nice! Try the slow-O approach sometime when you have the time. Pull the cork 5 - 6 hours early, take a small initial taste to enlarge the surface area to half-dollar size if necessary, keep cool, and wait! :slight_smile: If you pour gently, with the label facing up (so the sediment is on the other side), sediment has not been a problem for me, and besides, when a wine gets this age the tannins are so soft they don’t bother me.

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Thanks Paul. I wanted to slow O, but I chickened out(wimp!). I have a small handful of older wines like this in my cellar but rarely pull the corks. I was so worried that I didn’t trust myself or Mr Audouze’s method. It is probable that the wine would have been even better.

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Nice note Charlie, consistent with my recent note about the 1953. I like the descriptor of “a little spice cake”, which I agree with. The interesting thing at our tasting, where they were all experienced tasters, is that a number had this wine as “gone”, and preferred the more (relatively) primary 1976 Montrose or the 1986 Margaux. I guess palates vary … For me there are few things better in the wine world, than mellow, fully mature, top quality Bordeaux like this …

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Had a pristine bottle of this around 1980. (For a cool $75 for the bottle)
The perfume could be smelled 6 feet away!

One of the best all time Margaux’s… flirtysmile

TTT

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One of my top wines all time had 7-8 years ago with a bunch of heavy hitters, perfumed nose and ethereal palate are are two things I distinctly remember.

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Was my favorite. I much preferred it to the '53 Lafite. Had a case of 750s and a case of mags. When I got to the last mag and shared it with 4 friends it was a somber night. And that must have been 20 + years ago. Always lived up to its reputation.
Thanks for the memory.

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BTW, the 1953 Palmer ain’t no slouch!!

TTT