Notes from our regular monthly Brown Bag dinner - theme, Bordeaux.
2002 Chartron La Fleur - a modest and inexpensive blended white wine from Schroder & Schyler. Amazingly nice. Salt, lemon, gravel in nose, crisp and a good food wine. I expect this is almost all sauvignon blanc.1975 Clerc Milon - opened as an experiment, with every expectation that it would be dead. It had a pretty decent nose, but the fruit was all gone and the wine was dried out. Not one of the 'good' 1975s.
1986 Clerc Milon - darker than the 75, with a mellow nose of oak and plums. Very tasty wine, more advanced than I'd have expected.1988 Mouton Baronne Phillipe - sweeter entry and high toned nose, juicy, with good length but more acidity at end. Has time.
1987 Pichon Baron - decent if simple nose, sweet and a bit vegetal, but the wine goes flat in the middle and is lean at the end. Used to be better.1979 Lynch Bages - bright wine with a rubber nose and medium fruit with pretty good length and a decent feel in the mouth. Bit light for Lynch.
1979 Nenin - I have always been fond of this Pomerol, though you don't see it that much, and it seems to keep a low profile. The nose was both sweeter and a little simpler than the Lynch, and it was brighter in the mouth, due at least in part to the higher acidity. Both of these wine provided decent drinking, and were at the end of their plateau of drinkability.1992 Angelus - I have almost no experience with 1991 or 1992 Bordeaux and am happy to say that not one bottle of either resides in my cellar. I am told that the Angelus (a wine I am fond of in other vintages) represents the best of the vintage, and if so that simply reinforces my impressions. Everything started out well - big, dark and sweet in the nose, with some anise - very pleasant. Then you taste it, and there are the expected tight tannins, and a bit of greenness, but more damningly an astringency that follows through to the end that prevented me, at least, from deriving any pleasure from the wine. Interesting in an academic way. I have filed 1991 and 1992 in Bordeaux Hell, right beside 1977, as I have never had one of any of them that gave me real pleasure (including all of the 1991 First Growths). I will admit to a passing moment or two of enjoyment with a 91 La Mission Haut Brion, but that's as far as I am willing to go!
1996 Cabannieux - a modest Graves with which I am unfamiliar. Nice bright wine with good fruit and tannins present - quite decent, a luncheon weight claret.2000 La Croix Canon - I have never tasted this Canon Fronsac before - but was very favourably impressed. Dark well balanced wine with big sweet fruit, and tannin that comes in softly and seems to build at the end. I tasted many 2000s from barrel sample, but this is the first I have tried with any bottle time. I understand this was also great value.
1983 Taylors Port - the colour on this Port is surprisingly light, but given the structure, it had to be an 89s wine. The nose was a bit spirity, it was on the sweet side (for Taylors), and the heat continued on palate right to the end. It drinks well now, but is not as serious a wine as I would expect from the vintage and the producer.