I opened a bottle of 1996 Chateau Ducru Beaucaillou last night with grilled NY Strip steaks. I opened and decanted the bottle for a hour before dinner. The color was deep reddish purple with a faint amount of clearing at the rim. The nose was tight and mineral driven with no hint of TCA or Brett. The wine was undrinkable. Very little fruit and a very tart acidic and tannic. I'm not sure exactly what flaw or taint that I would say afflicted this bottle but it was clearly of. The cork was in excellent condition. Just a bad bottle I guess. I did come back to it later in the evening and it was just pure acid.
1996 Ducru
Oct 24, 2011
10 Replies
A case of low-level TCA "fruit scalping," perhaps? What a shame, Bill.
Mark Lipton
That is what I thought but the total lack of "off" aromas and the very high levels of acidity bordering on vinegar had me stumped. Perhaps a few bad microbes? I did open a 2000 Gruaud Larose that was tasty! Low levels of Cordier funk, plenty of ripe plummy flavors.
Strange showing, was one of my favorites at a big 1996 horizontal. We have a Ducru vertical set up for next month- so far have 1966,
1970, 1975, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1995, 1996, 2000. Hopefully our 96 will show better
I opened a 1996 Pinchon Longueville that was properly stored and bought as soon as it came out and had exactly the profile you describe. Again great cork, wine clear but horrible and Pinchon Longueville ranks high on my list of wines.
I did check the wine the next day and it was gone, gone, gone.
Another possibility is premature aging due to a faulty cork, Bill. I remember a few similar experiences in the early days of plastic "corks" before it was realized that those seals would fail early on.
Mark Lipton
I don't think Ducru ever had plastic corks...
It seems to me that 1996 had a number of these wines that were short in fruit, perhaps a shortlived vintage...
Anders
Short on fruit and shortlived are not phrases that come to my mind re
1996 Medoc (short on fruit does apply to some/many Libournais). I'm not sure if TCA or oxygen, but I'm pretty sure an off bottle here. I've had 1996 Ducru-Beaucaillou twice this year (both times with experienced Bdx group), and it showed well August: Rich, young, powerful. Deep creme de cassis fruit, big but ripe tannins, excellent length. There's just a touch of surmaturite that detracts for me, but nice wine. B+ March: young and totally primary, but this is going to be really nice. A-/B+
Anders, Sorry if I wasn't clear. I wasn't implying that Ducru had a plastic cork, merely a faulty cork. Failure of the closure will be the same regardless of the nature of the closure since it's the ingress of air that produces the problems.
Mark Lipton
The cork was perfect. Very high quality which is typical of Bordeaux, quite dense, the wine had only saturated the very end of the cork and there was not leakage at all. Just a bad bottle I suspect.
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