In the interests of science I opened this as I thought there was the possibility it may be past its best. And who on earth would have known that this wine would made up of 4, 5 or even 6 of the top vintages from the 50’s & 60’s? The final blend was fused together and bottled in 1973. This bottle had very high fills and immaculate labels.
The colour of this was, well let’s just say it looked like a 15 year old wine - in fact I was amazed at how young it looked. The nose reeked of bacon fat then olive, blood, iron, bay leaf and earth. But quite incredibly this bottle still had quantities black raspberry fruit packed into it! The palate wasn’t quite up to the nose being ever so slightly striped but it was focused, still fruit forward with a vein of acidity and still drying tannins running through it if that’s at all possible! A curiosity which is far from being dead and a wine which improved with air as opposed to just rolling over to die. FWIW there was very little sediment in the Cote-Roties. According to the label 3070 bottles were produced and Searsons Wholesale Ltd, Dublin, originally imported it.
If I were to guess it blind and then score it, I’d say it was a 1991 Cote-Rotie & give it 92pts! Just amazing for such an oddball bottling & I have no reason to think this will fall off its perch for another decade if well stored. A definite “wow” from me as I was not expecting this to be so full of life. ![[welldone.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/f/fc9709a841aa9379fd892a9cf0b535b05f473b86.gif "[welldone.gif]"){kind=small}