Chateau Tour de Marbuzet 1959

Storage is the great question here.

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

Salut/Hi Ian Russell,

I think there's a misunderstanding here.

le/on Fri, 26 Sep 2003 07:55:11 +0100, tu disais/you said:-

Impossible. The name "St Estephe" is the name of a village and its surrounding area. So any wine coming exclusively from the area (with the right grapes, and so on and so forth) within the boundaries of the "commune" (described yesterday by Michael) is entitled to the Appellation St Estephe, so it can't have a second wine.

Of crouse I could be misunderstanding what you mean by "of" in this context. If you mean that it's a second wine of a chateau _from_ or _in_ St Estephe, then semantically at least, it would be possible.

If you had searched Google for "Tour de Marbuzet" you would have found lots of information.

The Ch is one of (at least) three Cru Bourgeois estates in St Estèphe as you say. Ch Haut Marbuzet, Ch Tour de Marbuzet and Ch Chambert-Marbuzet owned by the Duboscq family.

It may be that the "tour" is the second wine though their (french language only) website doesn't say so.

As for its drinkability, '59 was a fantastic year (as others have said) and the '59 Ch Mouton-Rothschild, tasted against the Lafite of the same year, was the best red I've ever tasted. So much so, that after finishing the (enormous) tasting I went back to the Mouton and poured myself a glass which I drank, just for the pleasure. The only time I've ever done that.

However, A Cru Bourgeois isn't designed (nor was it in 1959) to last for 50 years. That said, if it's been well stored and the fill level is still close to the cork, then (remembering the '45 Ch Balestard la Tonnelle (also an estate one would not really expect to live that long) I was lucky enough to drink in '01) there are very good chances thet you'll be in for the wine of your life. Maybe you could contact the family at snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com

describe the fill level and ask them when they think the wine should be decanted - in French, of course.

Hi Ian,

Thank you for your helpful comments, the wine level is about 1 cm below the straight part of the bottles neck. There is only a mild sediment in the bottle. I plan to open it tomorrow.... !

Ian BTW I have emailed the family, but only in English sadly.

Salut/Hi Ian Russell,

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

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

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

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!)