The La Tache 1970 was bottle no. 020584, was in perfect condition, and had been stored properly since shortly after release.
The color is lighter than in the very best years and now has a bit of brick around the rim. I could detect no oxidation. The wine is fairly powerful at over 13% alcohol. This wine was fairly light when I tasted it about 15 years ago, and I then wondered how it would keep. Actually, it has kept very well and developed considerable more complexity. It is not a fruit bomb. Rather it is all about balance and complexity. It teases you with hints of many things that are difficult to place. Perhaps cherries, plums, a hint of truffles, some kind of mixed oriental spice, and a hint of earth come to mind. The finish is not of high intensity, but very long. The top wines of the DRC are some of the most difficult to evaluate in youth. If this were most other wines, you likely would have correctly predicted that the wine would be dead by now, after tasting it 15 years ago. However, even the lighter years of top DRC wines often can be dumb for up to decades before developing great complexity with age. What this wine lacks is mainly the much greater concentration of a very top La Tache when given a few decades to develop. But even the top wines of DRC must be very well stored to develop well with age.
Of course the top DRC wines have become extremely expensive in recent years. In the early 1970s, a La Tache would cost somewhat more than a first growth Bordeaux, and even Romanee-Conti was selling at well under $US 100. The 1970 Romanee-Conti, which now sells for over $US 2000, cost about $50 and the La Tache considerably less. The main problem then was finding these wines, especially Romanee-Conti. Some carriage trade wine sellers now are asking up to over $600 for the 1970 La Tache, but the auction price in the UK is considerably less.