Tonight, Jean and I -- in conjunction with Dale and Betsy -- decided to open the first bottle of a recent auction purchase split between Dale and myself. To add some extra fun, we decided to open the same bottle the same night to compare notes. Jean and I opened ours 15 minutes before a dinner of roast (Amish) chicken, roasted fingerling potatoes and sautéed asparagus with morels (the asparagus was always followed by chicken or potato prior to any wine). What follows are my notes, made without consultation of Dale's own notes:
1970 Ducru-Beaucaillou fill: top shoulder color: orange at the rim, going to dark garnet at the center nose: dark fruit, pencil lead, a hint of violets, later taking on a more herbal quality palate: medium body, vibrant dark fruit, good acidity, soft tannins remaining
Incredibly primary for a 38-year old Bordeaux, it seemed to emphasize the flavors of Cabernet Sauvignon. Lovely, but not tremendously complex, this wine was shockingly young-seeming and in great shape. A definite 4 on the Hoare food/wine matching scale.
One minor point of contention emerged about 3/4 way through this bottle: I felt that it had begun to smell of low-level cork taint, but Jean (who claims to be as sensitive as me to TCA) vehemently denied that. Who knows?
Mark Lipton