The Corton Bressandes 1971, Prince de Merode, was properly stored since release, had a high fill, and had no cork or other issues.
First a little background about 1971 is in order. This is the most variable vintage I can remember that produced some excellent wines and many poor ones. As usual those who usually made poor wine mostly made poor to very poor wine in 1971. For famous producers, the quality was all over the map. There was much localized hail in 1971. Some with hail damage carefully picked and discarded hail-damaged grapes. With careful sorting of grapes, some made excellent wines. However there were many poor wines with a taint of rot, and some of these turned brown up to 30 years ago. The better wines tended to be high in acid, and were nearly pink when young. Many of these were not very user friendly when young and have required extended aging to become smooth.
Although Merode was not the most famous name in Corton in the 1970s, this 1971 is still quite decent. The color is rather light with some age showing. The bouquet is quite intense, and is mainly of red fruit and perhaps some beet root. The finish is fairly long. I did not detect any hint of rot or other undesirable traits. Perhaps Merode's portion of Bressandes received little hail damage, or very careful removal of hail damaged grapes allowed production of clean wine. In the best of years, Corton can be rather harsh for several years. This wine was, perhaps being more harsh than usual when young.