Not my highest scoring wine necessarily, but the one I can taste “on demand” and call up to memory at any time is a 1982 Chateau Lafleur I had in late 2016, so pure and seamless! Still well in drinking range so I hope to tackle it again someday…
One plea for those enjoying this thread as I am would be to note your tasting date, a key reference when dealing with treasures from the Fifties, Sixties, etc.
Keep them coming!
Jonathan
In true Berserker fashion I need to list 2 wines
1971 Penfolds Grange, drank this bottle in 2005 while sitting on my terrace looking out over Sydney Harbour, drank it with a meal of slow cooked lamb on a bed of truffle infused mash potato, I have drunk a fair bit of Grange but this particular bottle was sublime.
1978 DRC RSV, drank this in 2002, I had only just got into burgs and most of the older wines I had drunk had left me scratching my head trying to figure out what the big deal was, sooo good and so beautiful. Life changing
1996 Beaucastel CDP, not a great year or the best bottle of wine I ever had, but it started my love affair with the Rhone Valley. I had never tasted anything like it, spicy, sweet and exotic.
1942 DRC Richebourg
Giacosa Barbaresco Riserva Santo Stefano 1985 - got me hooked on Giacosa twenty years ago and this still holds
I’m having a hard time deciding on this, but for a friend of mine it was the 1989 Meyney I served him tonight. That wine is not the best one I’ve ever had, but it may well be the best QPR I’ve ever had.
1989 Petrus.
Had twice with a close friend out of a 750 bottle over the course of dinner. I don’t use the word hedonistic often in terms of a wine - and more often it would be a pejorative - but this opulent, dense, rich, multi-layered wine is also impeccably balanced and well-knit. A revelatory wine to me.
Have a 98 on deck to share with this same friend, but may need a few more years.
1968 Heitz Martha’s Vineyard cab
1945 Haut Brion, the only perfect wine.
I just got two cases of this at auction after finishing off the last bottle I bought on release. I agree it is the best QPR I ever had.
Can’t argue 1989 Meyney. I bought a bunch at Total Wine back in the day. They didn’t last long.
1976 Château de la Maltroye Chassagne-Montrachet Rouge. Bought a case on release. Drank in 2005. Perhaps not a perfect wine, but a PERFECT bottle. Decanted into a Waterford hand cut crystal decanter we had just bought back from the factory in Ireland. The decant alone made the room smell like someone had just dropped three pounds of dark cherries on the floor and then stomped on them. The release price was $6 by the case at Post in Syosset.
I have a few others that were close, but today I will follow the rules.
Nah
1978 Zind Humbrecht Clos Jebsal SGN
1970 Monfortino
1945 Port (long ago and forgot the producer but I think it was Grahams)
1922 D’Oliveras Madeira for Havdalah on my mother’s 90th Birthday in 2012. Shared with about 30 family members. Sometimes the answer requires context.
Nice. This was my favorite bottle of Italian wine ever - I still remember the wine, the dinner, and the night.
1989 Giacosa Collina Rionda Riserva. Best wine ever.
Very nice Jay!
I’ve easily gone through two cases of this excellent little wine. Have one 86 and one 89 left. The 88 ain’t no slouch, either.
Difficult question.
1985 Sassicaia is a very, very good wine, but lacks typicity, and while the 1950s and 1960s California wines are good, they don’t shoot that high. Some of the clarets I’ve tasted from the early part of the last century are ethereal, even almost perfect.
But if I HAVE to choose one only, I think it will have to be the 1927 Taylors (although the 1878 Cockburns was pretty interesting too).
89 Haut Brion at a WCWN offline in Dallas in 2001. More layers of flavor than any other wine I have ever tasted.
Surprising to me, had an 06 Jaboulet Hermitage La Chapelle earlier this summer at their tasting room in Tain l’Hermitage that I thought was approaching the class of how I remembered that 89 Haut Brion. Don’t think this wine got a lot of raves in the press, but I thought it was fantastic with many layers of stuff going on.
1928 Chateau Latour.
Handed down to me by my now deceased stepfather, who had been gifted the bottle himself by his father, who had bought upon release and had stored it in his home cellar.
1863 Wiese & Krohn Colheita Port tasted from cask at the lodge prior to the sale to Taylor Fladgate. A kneel and bare your head to God sort of wine.