Chateau Tour de Marbuzet 1959

Storage is the great question here.

1959 is a great year according to everyone I've ever heard. But I've never heard of Tour de Marbuzet. A second wine perhaps? Haut-Marbuzet is a pretty dependable (actually usually pretty good ) St. Estephe cru bourgeois. Even in a great year, 44 is pushing it for a non "marquee" wine. If I'm wrong and it's a name estate, it might be valuable. But my guess is winebid or winecommune might net you $40 for the vintage (from a birthyear guy who can't afford the astromical 1st growth). IMHO, you'd be better off drinking it and foregoing all the auction hassle.

Dale

Dale Williams Drop "damnspam" to reply

Thanks for the comments, I have found a reference to Tour de Marbuzet as being a second wine of St. Estephe.

We have some special guests coming for dinner on Sunday, so I thinks its going to get opened then !

Cheers,

Ian

Chateau Tour de Marbuzet is a Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel.

Salut/Hi Ian Russell,

le/on Sat, 27 Sep 2003 14:36:45 +0100, tu disais/you said:-

1 cm for a wine some 45 years old is remarkable. Christie's publish a reference picture of fill levels, with the "norms" for various ages. Anything above top of shoulder for a wine of that age they describe as exceptional. Given that the fill level is to some extent a measure of how little wine has escaped (hence the seal of the cork and/or the steadiness of the storage temperature), I reckon that despite the fact that the wine is from a "lesser" estate, it ought still to be excellent. An old gentleman, shall we call it.

Have a decent wine as a back-up, of course. So then... Let's assume that I'm right in my reading of this wine. I would stand it up as soon as you get this message (MP doesn't agree), keeping it in a cool room. (Ideally at

60-65F) Then about 1 hour before you are due to drink it (this part is the gamble, because it could just go OTT after 20 minutes or so) open and decant it very slowly and carefully, with a candle behind the neck so you can see when the sediment arrives - stop decanting then, of course. Have a sniff, and see if it smells OK. Stopper the decanter and then serve in due course. If you wanted to be cautious, after 15, 30 & 45 mins have a sniff of the decanter to see if it's improving or diminishing.

Although there's a risk that the wine will go OTT after a short while, I've rarely seen it happen as quickly as 20 mins (the shortest I remember was for Ch Pedesclaux '62 drunk in around '80, which started downhill after 15 mins or so, while the other wines drunk against it were just waking up!). In fact I think more wine disappoints by being drunk when not left long enough in the decanter than by being left too long. Coming back to the '45 (I've too little experience with _very_ old wines) I don't know how long it had been decanted before bringing to the table, but when first poured, it was pretty closed in and dumb. After 15 mins _in the glass_ it started to wake up, and after a while longer, really shone.

I hope you get an answer from the Duboscq family, though given that their website is entirely in French, I don't think it's too likely that they know much english. If I have time I may try to phone them for you.

Thanks for the decanting tips, today is the day ! I will let you know what I find.

Hi Ian et al,

Well we had a good bottle ! I have no previous experience with old wines so I was very apprehensive ! The top of the cork was well protected by the foil but there was quite a thick layer of a mould like substance on the cork itself. The top half of the cork was quite solid and came out easily, however the lower half had almost dissolved. It stayed in the neck and I had to extract it in little bits. To my relief it was not "corked" but did not have any particular smell, good or bad.

I decanted it in two stages, first into a jug to remove a few bits of cork and check for other deposits then into a decanter. We tasted it immediately and it was very dull and disappointing. After fifteen minutes we tried another half glass and it had "woken up" and was very smooth and subtle. I decided to leave it for another fifteen minutes and when we tried it again it seemed fuller still. We finished almost all the remainder with a fine Beef Wellington I had made. Lovely meal !

More from curiosity than anything else, I kept a little back for later tasting this morning. Not withstanding that I don't normally drink wine at breakfast time (!) The wine now tasted almost unpleasant with a nasty after taste !

What goes on when an old wine is opened ?

Regards,

Ian

Salut/Hi Ian Russell,

le/on Mon, 29 Sep 2003 20:21:26 +0100, tu disais/you said:-

I'm SO pleased to hear that.

Yes that can happen sometimes.

fifteen minutes we tried

Wonderful. So in fact it needed about half an hour. Re-reading what you had said, I realised I'd misunderstood it. I took you to mean that the wine was

1cm below the cork, not 1cm down into the shoulder - which is in fact about normal for a wine of the age of yours. And I'd have been more cautious about my decanting advice!!! Still, you were sensible and had the wine at its best!!

Yup, sounds like it had just about died.

Gawd knows. Seriously - I don't think anyone has much idea of the details of the chemical/physical processes that take place. My guess would be that there'll be some oxydation, and that the attractive scents and flavours that emerge are these oxidised products. But that's about the equivalent in semantic terms of saying "I have rhinitis". Describing symptoms (swollen nasal passage) without giving any idea of the cause. Sorry.

PS. just a gentle reminder that top posting and not trimming tends to make posts harder to read and MUCH bigger than necessary. (Forgive me).

Thanks for all your advise.

I assume this is what you wanted me to do ? Sorry, I just hit reply in Outlook Express.....

Ian

Salut/Hi Ian Russell,

le/on Wed, 1 Oct 2003 08:58:46 +0100, tu disais/you said:-

Absolutely perfect!!! I think all newsreaders put the cursor at the top of the quoted text, but that only makes it easier to re-read and trim as needed. Thanks for taking the hint so well. (Which is as much for all of us!)