1982 Chateau Leoville Las Cases

Congratulations! I have a bottle sitting on my rack. Looking forward to it some day.

My son starts college next fall. Since his birth year is 1986, looks like we'll be drinking that Mouton-Rothschild in four years (I hope!)

Joe

] My son graduated from Duke University this past weekend and I brought along ] a bottle of 1982 Ch. Leoville Las Cases for the occasion. We were eating at [snip notes]

Hey, congratulations Bill. That's an occasion that warrants a great wine, and you certainly picked one. I never had much of it in the cellar, and the last bottle went some years ago, but my recollection gibes with your notes. A great wine.

-E

Thanks Emery. Yes, now it's law school. I don't know what I'll break open for that! Bi!!

snipped-for-privacy@aol.com (RV WRLee) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mb-m13.aol.com:

Don't get us started on lawyer jokes, we must be careful as we have a soliciter in the house.

Aha! LLC 82, the great enigma. RP 100 pointer. I bought en primeur at GBP 130 a case....it was a lot of money at the time.

I have just sold the last of my 82. I remember the first bottle at our wine club 82 horizontal, about 1989, blind, and I remember saying it was rather mean, and where was the fruit to stand up to the tannins, it was not a patch on Pichon lalande.

And on subsequent tastings, my initial thoughts have been reinforced, all from different cellars, where was this wine going, again it was the lack of fruit.

a fellow club member, with a good palate, told me at Xmas, that he too, is worried about its future.

I therefore sold the rest of my holding, and to get back to the education thread, it helped pay towards my sons university costs.

I am I out on a limb on this one???

BTW, haven't posted recently.............builders in etc.

"John Taverner" skrev i melding news:e2soc.23189$ snipped-for-privacy@pathologist.blueyonder.net...

Googling up my notes from January I found the following: The wine color was amazingly youthful, no trace of brown, a bluish red with a slightly watery rim. We were also quite surprised to see that overall color was surprisingly light, not a very dense wine, this! Nose was weak and body light with soft tannins but there was good length and a little complexity. A nice little wine... Worth 300USD? No, absolutely not...

It seems there's agreement on the lack of substance in this wine! Anders

This sounds nothing like the wine I drank. I've had the '82 LLC on a number of occasions and it was never weak or thin. The wine was quite concentrated and had wonderfully ripe rich fruit and well integreted tannins. Bi!!

Just another data point (from a blind tasting) of 6 '82s:

Wine B Perfumed nose of earth and cedar, hint of forest floor, but somewhat simple on palate. A St Julien or Margaux? (1982 Leoville Las Cases, My 5th, Group 6th)

But.......my memory is that a small sip late in the evening (the blind tasting was held before we sat down at a huge Bdx-bash) after dinner was quite the transformed wine. Don't think it had enough breathing time before the blind tasting.

Dale

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"RV WRLee" skrev i melding news: snipped-for-privacy@mb-m05.aol.com...

There's bottle variation, you know... I've got another one of this - we'll see. Anders

] >Googling up my notes from January I found the following: ] >The wine color was amazingly youthful, no trace of brown, a bluish ] >red with a slightly watery rim. We were also quite surprised to see that ] >overall color was surprisingly light, not a very dense wine, this! Nose was ] >weak and body light with soft tannins but there was good length and a little ] >complexity. A nice little wine... Worth 300USD? No, absolutely not... ] >

] >It seems there's agreement on the lack of substance in this wine! ] >Anders ] ] This sounds nothing like the wine I drank. I've had the '82 LLC on a number of ] occasions and it was never weak or thin. The wine was quite concentrated and ] had wonderfully ripe rich fruit and well integreted tannins.

My experiences jibe with Bill's. I only ever had it twice, both my bottles. I thought it was wonderful, with great concentration IIRC.

Sounds like there was an enormous amount of bottle variation, I wonder if maybe there were 2 (or more) bottling runs?

-E

In 2000 -

Leoville Las Cases - this whole flight was an embarrassment of riches, and the best was saved for last. A lead pencil and wax nose, and then a huge hard wine that will need years before it loosens up, but it definitely has the fruit to outlast the tannin. At this point it needs at least an hour in the glass to start to show it''s virtues, and needs many years of maturation to reach it''s peak. It will be great, given time.

And -

in 2001 -

In 2002 -

Leoville Las Cases - truly impressive. Cedar and pencil shavings with bright fruit in the nose, massive presence in the mouth, yet soft on palate, with sweet concentration of flavour, and really exceptional length. Nothing here to criticise, except perhaps its absence from my cellar.

Pretty consistent, I'd say. I can dig up a couple more from last year, but they are similar notes.

I would say that these notes were consistant with the '82 LLC that I just drank. The wine (2 bottles in different decanters) was opened and decanted for an hour before we started drinking it. I tasted it upon opening and it was a bit tight at first but I expected it to be a bit closed after being in the bottle for so many years. After an hour it had opened to reveal lovely fruit, great balance and concentration and well integreted tannins. The wine continued to improve over the evening until alas it was finished.:-( Bi!!

. After an hour it had opened to reveal lovely fruit,

Now you have really got me worried, here we have notes from professional and serious tasters which conflict with mine.

The wine was always decanted and left to breathe, yet the divergence in notes is quite remarkable. Is this a bad bottle run?, I think not, perhaps, even blind, we may have known, what was about, and lifted our expectations too high. I will follow this wine with interest, still it did pay for a terms fees :-)

This is what wine appreciation and tasting is all about, you never stop learning.

Cheers JT

These comments offer little on this particular vintage, only about the wine in general in nearby vintages. (I avoided buying the 82 when current, from sudden hype about it at the time among people previously silent, since someone had appeared on the scene with categorical recommendations, and instructed everyone to buy it which they did. A bizarre new phenomenon then (sure to pass :-), and even today, among incisive professionals predating that event, the general call on that Bordeaux vintage remains an open question -- a topic outside my immediate object or competence.)

Anyway Bordeaux fans appreciate that this particular Léoville has long been a favorite in modern times (with or without 1982) and was historically a good value (lacking the celebrity-and-drug-dealer recognition of the widely mentioned first-growths). I bought of the 1978 and 1979, a little 1983, some 1985 later on the aftermarket; received a well-stored 1975 as a gift in

So I still don't claim to know this wine well. Still hold a dozen of the

(By the way, my main wine mentor had thought well of the 1964 Léoville-L-C when current in 1967 and therefore focused resources and bought 5% of the US allotment or 50 dozens -- this is a modestly-paid humanities professor, not a nouveau-riche -- which he proceeded to use as a reference wine in experiments and demos for the next three decades -- rehashes of the famous glove-box experiments with inert gas atmospheres demonstrating flavor changes with little oxygen, etc. -- thus that particular wine could make a good identifier tag in a data-base search for his writing, so consistently did he rely on it.) He had something in _New Scientist_ recently though no Léoville involved, alas. I don't doubt he still has some.

Also by the way, what was all that stuff here lately about 1964 Bordeaux being weak? Sounds recent to me, like these way-after-the-fact "histories of the Internet" you now find posted. I say so because it was commonly taken for granted in the 1970s and 1980s, when most people speaking would normally have experienced it, that the 1964 vintage was a principal one for the 1960s in Bordeaux, along with 1961. That was my impression too from the occasional 1964's I've had. If something has developed to change this traditional picture then I would be obliged for sharing of details. (Might even open a Léoville maybe, if the details are interesting.)

-- Max

That's nothing new nor lately. 1964 is uniformly beautiful on the right bank and in the Graves, but patchy in the Médoc because of the rain floods in the late season. Latour - an early harvester - made a perfect wine, but the three other firsts (Lafite, Margaux and first- to-be Mouton) were disappointing.

M.

Hi Max:

Hmmm. I am a comparative non-fan of 1982. But my objection is on a QPR basis, as '82s seem consistently priced in the stratosphere. I think it is a very fine vintage. My curiosity is about the statement that the quality is an open question. We all know that Parker consistently gushes about '82. But while others might not be quite as gung-ho as RP, I actually don't know any critic (British, French. or American, garagiste-lover or hater, pointgiver or not) who currently doesn't rank '82 near the top of the Bdx of the last 30 years. A quick glance at Hugh Johnson shows 8-10L/7-9R, and BBR shows a solid 10.

True historically. But like Lynch-Bages, the consistent agreement that something is comparatively underpriced has entered the general consciousness. Lately, I though Barton and Poyferre offered almost as good a wine as LLC at half or less the price, but suddenly they seem to be shooting up , too.

o>Also by the way, what was all that stuff here lately about 1964 Bordeaux

In my very limited experience, I'd agree with Michael. Well-stored '64 Médocs (Calon Segur, L-Barton, L-Bages, and Talbot) were quite disappointing, the Barton was only one I'd have paid $20 for (I didn't buy, a wine friend who is of the '64 vintage himself did). But the Soutard, a middling St. Émilion, was quite fine 5 or 6 years ago.

Of course, that doesn't speak to how things drank earlier. But certainly the current rep of '64 is well behind '61 and '66.

Dale

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Médocs>(Calon Segur, L-Barton, L-Bages, and Talbot) were quite disappointing

. But the Soutard, a middling St. Émilion, was

QED!

the>current rep of '64 is well behind '61 and '66.

I think that most of us are better versed in the left bank. Part of the reason for this is the plethora of small chateaux in the right bank versus the fewer, larger ones on the left bank producing more wine and having greater name recognition than all but a select few of the right bank producers.

I have enjoyed almost all of the right bank 64s I have been able to get my hands on, but found the left bank performance to be spotty at best.

And the fact that the 61 and 66 vintages are more highly regarded must be taken with a large grain of NaCl. There were other surrounding vintages that were very good to excellent, but have not attracted the same press - which is good, as that often means that they fail to attract quite the same prices.

I have found that I often prefer the 1959 vintage to the more highly touted

"Dale Williams" in news: snipped-for-privacy@mb-m19.aol.com...

Keep in mind I am no hard-core Bordeaux fan (with comprehensive inventory of Crus Classés across vintages). But for example the then-strong 1978s, on pre-arrival in 1980-81, included Léoville-L-C and Pichon-Lalande at US $20-30, Figeac at $40 I think, Margaux etc. $50 (that's what I and others I know paid, and we bought them because we tasted them at pre-arrival showings, and liked them). I should mention that this was also near the end of the days when numerous years of Bordeaux routinely stayed on market together at US retailers; in 1979-81 I could get a selection of good 1970s,

As I said earlier, it's not my expertise, and my remark was not from reading critics. It is a sense I picked up from various people senior to me with whom I taste sometimes (all predating Parker and outside the effects of the press on 1982, though not without respect for Parker's palate). The point was summed up by one of them (who actually is a critic some of you might know but whom I obviously can't attribute on this without permission) when some of us discussed, a few years ago, the sequence of events around the public's reception of the 1982 Bordeaux in 1983-85, as the vintage's reputation unfolded. The concern was how well the vintage would confirm, over time, RP's early characterizations of it. One of these days let me introduce you in person and we can do the subject more justice.

(By the way, "garagiste" is fairly new to me, as are also phenomena like ParkerPhobes accusing Parker of this or that and ParkerPartisans replying charging envy, competition, etc -- my references to Parker concern basically market impact, fans, and numerical ratings, all of which I saw arrive, so I lack the comforting illusion that they are a natural part of the landscape.)

I didn't know that. I scored some Barton too up into the 1990s and indeed it was never expensive at all. I lacked a sense of its quality because of l imited experience.

I am realizing this, I like St-Émilions and bought them only, maybe affecting my impressions of 1964.

-- Supplemental anecdote: What became of my 1983 Ch. Margaux.

I had stashed couple dozen assorted wines, for historical reasons, with friends in upstate New York. They were cosmopolitan but not regular wine drinkers. I had urged them in earnest to take some if they needed some wine. On a later visit the husband (originally from New Zealand) explained how they'd used a few bottles, and "we found a good seam, so to speak, and mined it out." You can guess what it was, the others were lesser wines. A good use of wine, they were friends after all. They did appreciate the Margaux very well, although the name was new to them.

Max

I think this is an outgrowth of the term "super-second". I tend to use the term ONLY to mean the second-growths (like LLC) that perform at or close to the level of the firsts. But in a discussion here a few years ago, someone defended the term to mean any wine that sometimes approached firsts in quality (probably Palmer and L-Bages would be the obvious ones). I have heard L-Bages incorrectly referred to as a super-Second. To me I use the term for LLC, Cos, Ducru, and Pichon Lalande ; I'm less likely to use for Leo-Barton, Pichon Baron, Gruaud, etc. Unsure if tht matches exactly with industry practice.

I don't think that Barton was really outstanding in the 80s, but offered good value. Since '94 I've been impressed with both Barton and Poyferre. Even in the difficult '98 Medoc vintage they both did well. But by 2000 vintage enough people seemed to recognize this to really drive prices up.

As Michael and Bill said, clearly a Right Bank vintage. I've never had a '64 Pomerol, but hear they are at least as good as the St-Ems.

Bill S., I'll take your word for comparitive value of '61s. I've only had a couple , which were great, but I didn't pay! I do own one '61 , the Pape Clement, which I acquired to share (soon) with my '61 vintage brother. I also was part of a consortium bidding Friday on an assortment of '61s at an auction (if we won it was going to be a '61 horizontal offline) , but I think I would have heard from organizer by today if we won.

cheers,

Dale

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