Monday night was a Commanderie de Bordeaux 'cellar cleaner' featuring mostly
1983 wines.With sturgeon with champagne caviar sauce:
1989 'R' de Rieussec - this dry wine of a Sauternes house showed more colour than the other. An almost metallic nose, good initial feel, but then it went flat in the mouth. Might have been passable a few years ago.1993 Blanc de Ch. Coutet - same idea, dry wine from sweet wine house, made from surplus sauvignon blanc, but quite different in execution. Clean crisp and undistinguished. Not bad in its way, I suppose. Clearly would have had monumental acidity when bottled, but palatable now, just not very interesting. Oh well.
With pheasant ballotine with wild mushroom Port reduction:
1981 Talbot - a vintage that no longer gets the attention it warrants, being followed so soon after by the highly touted 1982 and 1983 vintages, but still some delightful wines as long as you are careful not to decant too long ahead of time. Nicest nose of flight, medium bodied and smooth with a kick of acidity at the end. Dried out with time in the glass, which indicates a wine nearing the end of its useful drinking life.1982 Leoville Barton - this wine would have been wine of the night for me - if it had just shown a nose, any nose! Very good weight in the mouth, and some well concentrated fruit on palate, the tannins now resolved and the wine enjoyable - but no matter how long we waited, not much nose in evidence. I think I only have one bottle left, and it darned well better perform better than this one did, because I know how impressive a showing this wine can put on.
1983 La Lagune - now this is a nice wine, but it doesn't equal nor certainly surpass the excellent 1982, but with the abdication of the Talbot, it left this as the ultimate favourite. Good fruit in nose with a hint of cloves, medium weight, well balanced, tannins resolved, and quite fresh with good length. Nothing to complain about, it did everything well. I do not think this wine will hold for many more years, and should be drunk up.With venison chop:
1983 Cos d'Estournel - quite a nice nose on this one, mature Bordeaux with cedar. The basic structure is fine, the aggressive tannins that have always marked this wine having mostly melted away, but there is just too little fruit left to make it enjoyable. An 'also ran'.1983 Calon Segur - bizarre little wine with a strange menthol nose. Light weight, edges pale, and sour at the end. A wine only its mother could love.
1983 Montrose - I have been hitting a few fairly tannic 1983s lately, but this, contrary to form, wasn't one of them. The nose lacked complexity, and the tannins that were present were a bit too green for my liking, and made their presence known a bit earlier than you'd like, on palate, but this wine did open up to become decent rather than notable.1975 Montrose - I am a big fan of this tough vintage, or at least of the wines that had enough fruit to outlast the substantial tannin that earmarks this year. This Montrose was by far the darkest wine of the flight, and had the best nose. It has the usual high level of tannin, with only slightly inadequate fruit that tailed off a bit at the end when it hardened up. My bottle was not as good as several I have had of this wine, and one table that obviously had a good one, voted this wine of the night. I desperately wanted to like this one, but knowing what it could be, I had to give the nod to the 83 La Lagune.
With brie stuffed with Chinese black truffles:
1983 Leoville Poyferre - this wine can show very well based on previous tastings, but this bottle was a bit substandard. Good nose with currant and vanilla, but there was a small gap in the middle of the wine on palate, where it went all watery on you before pulling itself together again at the end. Too bad - this can be much better.1983 Beychevelle - a stony, woody sort of nose, but good fruit and given the sub par showing of the Poyferre on this occasion, the better wine of the two.
With dessert:
1975 Taylors Port - I enjoyed this vintage for many years but had pretty much written it off as stores of it diminished in my cellar and as the 1977s (finally) started coming on line, but I've been revisiting it recently, with quite pleasant results. This example showed a colour that was fading a bit, the nose on the hot side, and mellow and enjoyable in the mouth. Quite decent. I recently found a small cache of 1974 Taylors LBV hiding out in a forgotten corner of my cellar, and it has lost colour to the point of resembling a Madeira, but has also hung together and drinks well!