The following is a tasting note from Parker on the 2000 Leoville Barton, i just cannot get why you would buy a tannic wine that is going to take 20-30 years to become drinkable, why is it a badge of honor that a wine will last 50 years
“95+ out of 100…I found this to be one of the more backward wines of the 2000 vintage and gave it a window of maturity of 2015-2040 when I reviewed it in 2003. In my two recent tastings of it, I changed that window to 2018-2050, which probably says more than the following tasting note could say. This is a behemoth – dense, highly extracted, very tannic, broodingly backward, with a dense purple color and very little evolution since it was bottled 8 years ago. Wonderfully sweet cedar and fruitcake notes are intermixed with hints of creme de cassis, licorice, and earthy forest floor. It is full-bodied and tannic, with everything in place, but like so many wines that come from Leoville Barton, it makes a mockery of many modern-day consumers wanting a wine for immediate gratification. Those who bought it should continue to exercise patience and be proud to own a wonderful classic with five decades of longevity ahead of it.” - Robert Parker, Wine Advocate
Well it’s almost time to drink it. I bought the wine on futures. At age 49 I have plenty of wine drinking left in me. When I get to my retirement I will have a beautiful, perfectly aged Bordeaux to savor. No issue at all.
Alan, I say this as someone who enjoys your posts… why? Because people like it. Just like you like the things you like, other people like other things. In this case, some people really like the flavors in aged Bordeaux, and are willing to wait 20-30+ years to enjoy them.
The good news for you is that it means they leave more of the wines you like… for you.
There’s nothing like ancient Bordeaux that was built to be ancient… Although I’d rather pay the premium for others to wait it out and cross my fingers it was well kept…
That being said, 2000 Bordeaux is one of the last ‘great vintages’ I would seek out except for a handful of the great wines…
It’s not a badge of honour merely for a wine to last, but wines that are built to last often provide some of the most complex wines, and a really good mature wine will be more interesting to me than a much more expensive new release wine.
Indeed I get very concerned that those wines that historically have provided great pleasure in maturity, may in their modern incarnations be trading in the longevity and future complexity, for a more approachability in youth.
On this topic, I agree with Parker, though I can see how it appears he’s just arguing about the structure, not explaining why (and that’s OK - I don’t think he’d have space to argue the why in a TN). That said he’s typically OTT in his description, and without the rest of the note, if Parker had talked of a full-bodied behemoth, I would have run for the hills!
Hey it’s already got 15 (or 16 if you prefer the calendar year approach) years under it’s belt, sounds like it is time to start poppin’ corks! Why be such a sour puss?
You don’t get it for the same reason you don’t get aged Burgundy, and that’s perfectly fine. You like your cowboy ribeye encrusted with Cajun spice, and I like my dry aged chateaubriand.
I will say that as a 30-something I really find that I prefer aged wines. So I’m spending most of my time trying to back-fill wines in the hopes that they’ve been stored properly. I’d say that on average I’ve lost about 5% of the wines I’ve bought at auction to bad storage or leaking problems. The two most painful losses were a 1990 Biondi Santi Reserva Brunello & a 1990 Musar. However, I’ll still take those losses when I can get experiences like the '66 Lascombes and the '82 Les Ormes de Pez that I’ve had in the past few years.
People who are buying this are buying other things, too, and this just goes into the cellar as something interesting, for later. I’m blessed/cursed with a spouse who loves old Pauillac, so this isn’t that weird to me.
Because in 50 years many of us will be gone but the vineyards of Leoville Barton will still be ripening fruit every year for wines. The bottles of the 2000, and the Chateau will have them, will remind the buyers of the future why Bordeaux is special.
Most modern wineries have taken a short view, in an industry where great old bottles are still the pinnacle of many drinkers lifetime of consumption. For me, 57 Bonnes Mares from Jadot drank in 1996 was life changing, and no youthful bottle that I have tasted or consumed is close to that experience.
I dont have an issue with wine aging and if people prefer it to age until all the life and energy has gone ( oops i mean resolved ) then of course who am i to disagree. What i dont get is a wine that is not enjoyable by even a baby killer like me until its 20 years old.
As a 1957 vintage myself, sir, I am envious of your experience!! I can only hope the '57 Gaunoux Corton I’ve squirreled away can provide similar experience on my 60th.
There is something interesting about trying a bottle every once in a while to see if it is ready. Just part of the hobby. Some people plant a shrub so that they can prune it in 15 years. Is that weirder?