TN: 70, 74, 76, 79, 81, 82, 83, 88, 95, 96, 98, 99, 02, 04 Cheval Blanc.

WINE TALK
1

Joined 60 other people, including winemakers (Steve Lagier & Carole Meredith, Andy Erickson, Delia Viader, Helen Keplinger, Mark Porembski, Jennifer Williams) vineyard owners (Jan Krupp, Bill Smith) and wine writers (Karen MacNeil) and collectors up at Aaron Pott’s Mt Veeder residence and vineyard for a wild tasting of over 20 vintages of Cheval Blanc, plus other wines busted out for the occasion.

The weather was perfect, a nice 72 degrees outside. Calm and serene. Here was the view…

Once inside, it was a different story. This was not a meditative, quiet, peaceful tasting. It was a wild, loud, free-for-all tasting, with In-N-Out Burgers. Honestly, I prefer this to what I am use to. It was fun, relaxed, no one was intimidated because you just grabbed the wine you wanted to try and went to town. Here is a table where most of the wines were.

The hard part was taking notes. I used my iPhone but some like Karen MacNeil actually tried to stay put and take notes while standing and drinking. As the bottles became consumed they were taken to another table. Here is that pile. These are all Cheval Blancs.

Mark Porembski (L) and DJ Warner holding the…err…big bottle. Empty!

Okay, onto the tasting notes. These are brief since the ability to take notes was limited. Plus, the more notes I took the less wine there was! I think I missed a couple of vintages.

1970 Cheval Blanc, St Emilion
Faded.
70pts

1974 Cheval Blanc, St Emilion
Fading ruby with brown nuances. Still pleasant with cedar and chocolate, but past it’s prime by maybe a decade.
83pts

1976 Cheval Blanc, St Emilion
This may have been ever so slightly corked, but the wine was still solid. Seems to not be worth holding any longer as I sense it has peaked out.
86pts

1979 Cheval Blanc, St Emilion
On the downside, some brown in the color, faded aromas.
77pts

1981 Cheval Blanc, St Emilion
Is that a very slight corkiness? Hard to tell. Other than that, nice mouth coverage with red fruits in the nose.
85pts

1982 Cheval Blanc, St Emilion
Still holding up very strong, opaque ruby color, deep red fruits, still a nice structure. Lasted 3 hours before fading. A stunner.
96pts

1983 Cheval Blanc, St Emilion
Ruby color with a touch of browning. Typical chocolate flavors but also with a bit of weediness. Pleasant but over the hill for me.
81pts

1988 Cheval Blanc, St Emilion
Still a touch backwards at age 22. Nice structure. Not terribly giving at this point but has the stuffing to improve. Black fruit flavors.
88+pts

1995 Cheval Blanc, St Emilion
About ready now. Chocolate emerging but cedar aromas still hidden, with nice red fruits. Medium-bodied. Drink over the next 5-10 years.
90pts

1996 Cheval Blanc, St Emilion
Opaque deep ruby. Red fruit, nice dose of chocolate. Very sexy. Drink now and the next 10 years.
93pts

1998 Cheval Blanc, St Emilion
My second favorite Cheval of the night. Opaque purple color, medium-full body. Great tannins and structure, Some black fruits with the red fruits. Far less evolved than any other 90’s vintage we tried. Excellent.
94pts

1999 Cheval Blanc, St Emilion
Deep ruby nose. Good mouthfeel, entering early maturity. Chcolate note starting to overtake the fruit. Gonna be a winner even if it is never a powerful wine.
92pts

2002 Cheval Blanc, St Emilion
Well-structured with deep purple color. I notice starting in 1998 the Chevals become more “New Worldy” a bit. I like the change I sense! Black fruits with string tannin, this is a winner that needs 5 more years at minimum.
92pts

2004 Cheval Blanc, St Emilion
Deep ruby purple. Medium-full body. Currants and black cherry, great texture. A very slight veggie note detracts, but just barely.
93pts

And of the piles of other wines present, these two stood out, with the second being a show stopper.

2003 Angelus, St Emilion
Awesome, with graphite, gravel and red fruits on the nose. Luxurious even now, but with stricture and tannin to go a ways. Give it 5-10 years. Any wine critic who likes this wine but complains about the ripeness and alcohol of California Cabs should be waterboarded.
95pts

1983 La Conseillante, Pomerol
Opaque ruby color. Still with power and class. Strong tannins and complete mouthfeel. Red fruits, cedar, the works. An amazing wine and the WOTN, almost unanimously. I see this going for $135 on the net and plan to buy some. Who would have thunk it, a 1983!
97pts

Overall, a great time. It is nights like this I gave up finance for.

2

looks like alot of people to share a 750.
were there multiple bottles of each vintage?

great notes and impressive since it was a stand up tasting.

3

Color me very jealous. Too bad about your 1983. Good bottles are mind-blowing. Thanks for the writeup.

4

Sad to read that none of the pre-82 bottles showed well. I have loved the 70 & 79 in the past.

5

Wow! Nice tasting indeed although I too have had far better experiences with the Cheval Blanc 1983. Thanks for sharing.

6

I would say 1/2 the vintages had more than one bottle. But even then, the top wines were gone after 60 minutes. You snooze, you lose, last night.

I think there was more than one 1983. If someone else there had a good one, would like to hear it.

7

Interesting notes. Thanks. I find Cheval Blanc for the most part underwhelming and your notes kind of confirm that. I’ve never had one that rocked my world.

8

1990 Paul?

9

The 1964 that I had 18 months ago is among the most memorable wines I have ever had.

10

I would bet you have never had 47. It ranks as one of the best bordeaux I have ever had…although it has been 15 years when I had it.

11

I’ve had the '90, '64, '82…never the '47…did a vertical a couple years ago also. For me, I just don’t think it is in the same league as the other big boys that go for hundreds of dollars. Doing a '90 high-end bordeaux dinner in a couple of weeks and CB will be there. So we’ll see. When we did ‘82s, CB did not fare well in most tasters’ opinion.

12

The 90 rocked my world.

13

Roy - were the wines decanted at all?

14

Been told the 05 Angelus was actually an 03. Oops! Made the change to the notes.

15

Ummmmmm. [oops.gif]

No. Some were, so were not. But many lasted for 3 hours once opened and the older ones got worse, not better. I am sure the younger, post 1998 wines could have used more time, but I do not think there would have been an extreme change. Once someone came with a new vintage we all went at the bottle like a pack of hungry wolves.

16

Hmmm… Maybe you should ask François Audouze about the optimum procedure, he’s the expert on this kind of thing. I believe he leaves them open for many hours, depending on the wine, and apparently this makes quite a difference.

17

They decanted in my stomach.

18

The one and only bottle of Cheval Blanc I have is the 2005.

19

I think it is a pretty hit and miss chateau. they obviously had a bad bottle of 1983, which I lately has been far better than 1982. The 1964 is incredible and I have tasted 1985, 1990 and 1998 in teh last 12 months, and thy have been sensational wines. These are all great top class wines, and obviously at its best, it deserves its place among the very best of Bordeaux, like the other First Growth underachiever, Mouton, it is not consistently great.

20

This picture was taken by Eric Hwang. It gives you an idea of how many Chevals we really had last night. I doubt I had more than 1/2 of them.