Glad you enjoyed your bottle, but this makes me more than a little sad to read. I procured 5 bottles at auction last year for under $50/btl all in. Waited until the weather window in the early Spring to have them shipped. They make it across the country only to get stalled at the regional hub. This happened to me once before and I was eventually able to go to the regional hub to pick them up, but no dice anymore. A few days later they show as damaged and are returned to sender. Wines back in CA, multiple emails and calls to the sender and a month later, they get back to me to say that they located the wines in their warehouse and only one bottle was broken, so they can ship the rest, expedited to next day air. Great! This time they make it to Nashville before going AWOL. Three days later and no movement, so I call to place an inquiry. Multiple weeks and more calls later and finally they are declared lost. Sigh. In case you were wondering, the shipper was FedEx, and this was the last straw so that now I will not purchase any wine that can’t be shipped by UPS.
Ouch! That bites for sure.
I think I paid $8-ish on release for 375s. I bought two boxes, 48 bottles, on release and still have a handful left. I had importer’s prices in those days…
Almost grabbed a 90 Sociando for tonight, but saw the 90 Louviere next to it, so that’s on deck for dinner.
Some chatter offline today about this wine inspired me to open one tonight… this is a beauty, at peak, see Robert’s note above for the rest. Feels like it could drink at this terrific level for another decade, with such a great core of fruit, acids and structure.
It’s hard to believe it’s been drinking at this level for 15+ years, does any other region get such long plateaus of peak maturity as Bordeaux (ok, besides old school Rioja)?
Robert – inspired by your post, last night I decided to pop my lone La Louviere 1990.
While the fill was lower neck and the cork in decent shape, I’m afraid it was ever so slightly off. Nonetheless, it was quite enjoyable. It presents very Graves. Your descriptives were perfect. Autumnal, as they say. With my wife out with friends, it was the perfect complement to her beef stroganoff on a very well deserved Lenten cheat night.
Looks great, would love to have a couple of more bottles. I recently bought some more 1989 Chateau Olivier, which like La Louviere in 1990, Outkicked it’s coverage. Both wines were so lovely way back then and continue to shine.