Wall Street Journal article

"Lawrence Leichtman" skrev i melding news: snipped-for-privacy@news.east.cox.net...

Why should it be 'better'? That's a different sort of wine... The non-cru Beaujolais should be drunk now, the Latour is possibly shut down now and not ready to drink before 2010-2020 or something like that. But, of course, Latour is overpriced - relative to the many very good wines available today at a tenth, or less, of the price. I've said it before - 80 years ago, before the first-growth craze, Latour asking price was 4 or 5 times that of common plonk! Anders

"Anders Tørneskog" wrote in news:Q14Se.5012$ snipped-for-privacy@juliett.dax.net:

I've

But, then, don't you think that Latour is one of those wines that really set the level? I only had the chance to taste two vintages (1998 and 2002, both at the Chateau tasting room), and was amazed. I can count the wines that have really impressed me with the fingers of one hand, and Latour is really one of them. I even like their third wine, called Pauillac.

Had I 150 euros to spend in a single bottle of wine, I would buy Latour three out of four times.

Best,

S.

"Santiago" skrev i melding news:Xns96C630928107meprivacynetonmyown@212.89.0.29...

It is, or rather, used to be... :-) No, it still is, but Lawrence seems to have a sound basis to claim that his 2001 was a disappointment. Now, it could have been an off bottle (or bottles?) - or simply what Michael would call "ein Korkenfehler". He is probably the one around here who could refute or confirm that claim. Anders

I think it is also true that the wine might be shut down, as someone else noted. I had the 2000 Latour last fall and I didn't really care for it. I suspect it will be a lot better in another 5-10 years. The same is probably true of the 2001.

Dimitri

Sorry, no, never tasted it. But the results clearly would point into the direction of one (or more?) off bottle(s). And what else than the cork should be the reason for this?

Btw: My best 2001, tasted in April 2002 from cask, not taking into account premiers and garagistes: La Tour Carnet (94/100).

M.

Looks like there is a copy of the WSJ article at

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Michael Pronay wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@pronay.com:

Michael,

I purchased two bottles of La Tour Carnet 2001 at Lavinia when I read you comments and have not regretted it at all. The first bottle, drunk two months ago was marvelous, specially for the price (about 20 euros retail).

I managed to convince a local retailer to purchase it and now it is available in my city. A few bottles more to lay down and see how it develops.

However, I do not think that it is the best 2001 that I have tasted. Leoville Barton 2001 (I suppose this fits into the "premiers" category you mention) has more structure and substance and, while a bit tight now, I think it is going to be a better wine, which is not surprising considering it costs 50 euros retail in Spain.

Another however, and, probably, my only doubt about La Tour Carnet 2001. I felt that somehow it lacked Bordeaux character. It tasted a bit like an internationalized wine (Bernard Magrez touch?). What do you think about this?

Best,

Santiago

Caution: I was talking about that specific cask tasting week in April 2002. I had bought some LTC en primeur (at 16.09 euros, VAT and delivery included), but haven't tasted it yet.

It's highly probable that there are better wines, but then they simply did not show as good as LTC on that specific occasion. I just looked up my TNs, Léoville Barton scored 84: "Cardboardy, although good structure", very much looks like a sub-par cask sample, so your comment makes very much sense.

In my experience, even if clarets taste "international", "parkerized", "Michel Rolland vinified" (which happens to be the case with post-2000 LTC) in their youth, these oak influenced aromas tend to disappear with due bottle age.

I had a beautiful experience two years ago, at a lunch in Paris with May-Éliane de Lencquesaing from Pichon-Lalande. Amongst other wines we had the 1982. She commented that at vinification time she had called it "mon petit californien". 21 years later there was nothing Californian with this wine, it was pure and unmistakeable Pauillac. "Il se reclassifie", "it's getting classic again", was Gildas d'Olonne's (Mme de Lencquesaing's nephew's) comment.

All this supports my theory that after 20 years in bottle it's more or less irrelevant whether the wine had been vinified in new oak, old oak, stainless steel or concrete vats. While being very important in its youth, the differences totally edge out with time, imho.

M.

Michael,

I can purchase it at 22 euros VAT included, and I pick the wine at the shop ;-)

I do not have a great experience with Leoville Barton but I think I read somewhere that their wines are usually very tight while in cask and in their youth. However, I found the 2001 truly an excellent wine.

That is interesting. I tend to drink wines too young, specially wines that are new for me. When do you think I should drink my remaining bottles of LTC 2001?

Best,

S.

Yeah, but I have my wine in my cellar right from the start. I really love to know the provenance ;-)

It probably is. I remember having tasted L-B much better from cask the other years. Since I taste blind (where possible), there is seldom a chance to have another bottle (in case there is a bottle problem). If the cask samples themselves are sub-par (which happens from time to time), then it's really difficult to give an appropriate judgment.

Ask me something different, please!

No, seriously, this is one of the most difficult questions which almost entirely depends on how you like your wines, rhather young or rather mature.

From our yearly Bordeaux tastings "10 years after" I'd suggest to have wines like LTC somewhere in the 10 to 15 years range, provided you have good (cool) storage. But, once again, it's all up to your personal taste.

M.

Michael Pronay wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@pronay.com:

I knew this one was not going to be easy ;-)

Thanks, I do have my best bottles in a Liebherr Vinotheque which holds about 250 bottles. Regulated at 12ºC. And then the rest are below ground at

Best,

S.

Last Wednesday we tasted 45 Bordeaux from 2001 and 2002. 9 of them

- exactly 20% - were corked, from heavily to almost indiscernible. The latter was the case for Léoville Las Cases 2001, scoring 90 for the first, 94 for the second bottle.

M.

How do you manage to taste 45 wines and retain any information about them? Is this an art which must be practiced or is it genetic?

Dimitri

Compared to Michael I am a slow taster, but I have taken notes on 20+ wines tasted over several hours. The keys are to spit, to write as you taste and to employ mental shorthand to reduce the amount of writing. When you know in advance what wines you are tasting, you can write down the identification (name, year, etc.) in advance and simply supply your impressions as you taste. It is definitely a different activity from even a visit to a winery: more analytical, less time to savor what you're tasting, little conversation and a minimal amount of eating. It's not recreation, but a great way to quickly gain an impression of a large number of wines.

Mark Lipton

But how do you compare them between each other? Or is that not the point? Even when taking notes, 45 is a whole lot. I can taste 45 wines in a day, but I cannot compare more than 8-10 wines to each other at any one time.

Dimitri

It's my job, and all I can say is: practice, practice, practice.

We started at 5pm with 28 Austrian Weinviertel wines (25 whites:

This was a rather small tasting, in fact. When we do our annual ~1500 wines roundup, we usually do 200 wines a day. Needless to says that this is very hard work, but it's possible.

What we do in our tasting panels (between three and five members), is to agree immediately upon the score we attribute a given wine. If it's excellent, we award a score (usually 91 or higher) and put it aside for an open final tasting of the best 10 to 15 percent of the wines. This final round is rather fast and serves very well to evaluate the top wines against each other.

M.