When I took the bottle back and told of my experience with it, the proprietor got curious enough to pour some into a glass. He took a whiff of it and visibly recoiled. "It even smells like pesticide," he agreed. His conclusion: bad bottle. That opinion was based on other bottles of Prelude he'd tasted. He said that in local tastings the Prelude had actually scored higher than the Ch. Marsau.
Me, I'm curious just what was in that bottle. Residual cleaning agents? Something toxic? I mean, it doesn't take a whole lot of the wrong pesticide or cleaning agent to make one really ill. Several parts per million X half a glass = ?
In any case, the proprietor swapped me for a bottle of 2000 Ch. La Bourree, Cotes de Castillon. I'm into it even as we speak (er, write/read). A decent little bottle that could probably benefit from another year or two.
Jef