Ch. Ducru-Beaucaillou 1970 has to be in the top 10, if not top 5 wines of 1970 including the first growths. You probably would have to go back to the 1961 to find a slighty better one. It is still deep colored with only scant evidence of age. The balance is perfect. The bouquet is huge with cassis, cedar, and complex spice notes. There is no need to swirl and fuss with this wine. The bouquet jumps right out of the glass at you. The finish is very long. This wine likely can not get any better and it would be a shame to keep it too long. However I expect it to hold several more years.
I served the wine in two glasses - a paper-thin Baccarat Brummel and a very old antique from the Venice area. This antique glass is about as elaborate as you see. The bowl is the shape of a very wide trumpet, is very light pink, and glitters with tiny gold flakes. The stem has an extremely detailed sea serpent coiled around it, complete with open mouth and red tongue. However this made no difference. The wine tasted and smelled equally good out of this and the more modern Baccarat. In fact this wine probably would have tasted quite good out of a jelly jar if an earthquake had just broken all of your good glasses. With a wine of this quality, you just have to sit back and enjoy the show. It is the type of wine that some chefs probably hate. It makes you lose interest in the food that is served with it. Yes, the 1970 Latour, given enough time, probably is a bit better.
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