Back in July, I presented Jean with a 50th birthday present of 3 bottles of the '61 Beychevelle, a birthyear wine for her. Tonight, for no particular reason except the onset of cooler Fall temperatures, she decided to open one with a spontaneously made paella (this continues our tradition of serving wildly inappropriate wines with paella).
1961 Chateau Beychevelle St. Julien nose: leather, tobacco leaf and underneath a deep reservoir of plummy fruit palate: rich, smooth tannins, beautiful balanceJohn Gilman has opined in his publication A View From the Cellar that this wine has almost 30 more years of drinking ahead of it. It certainly has enough primary character and balance to suggest that it can many more years, but I doubt that our cache will live to see 2014, let alone 2040.
Mark Lipton