I, being a "True Neophyte" to wine, am current trying to write a story about a bottle of Wine, Laid down in 1759 and rediscovered in 1970.
The details I can give you is that the Wine will be grown and produced in LAMBESC, FRANCE
The bottle will be corked and sealed with sealing wax and be found latter in a underground tomb in Holland, where the average temperature is as perfect as it could get for wine, between 56 and 58 degrees constant, laid upon it side.
My question is what wine should I make it (be it Red or White) that would have been produced during the 18th century and might survive intact till
1970. and still be drinkable at the end of my story?????????
The story will surround the search for this bottle, as well as other items stolen from the tomb, so I hope to pick your Collective Brains, as people that may know Wines of France far better than I.
I need suggestions for the Wine itself, as the Label and the Vineyard will be completely fictional, the type of grapes produced in this region, what wines has been known to survive until this day and age.
With the best of writer's intentions ... in being historically accurate
Wines don't last 200 years, at least they don't retain the drinkability of their youth. Most wines last no more than 10 years. It is a rare wine that last longer. Now some liquors are a different story.
Several years ago at a function moderated by Michael Broadbent we were served a 1795 Madeira. The tasting is referenced is his "the New Great Vintage Wine Book" Page 382. This might be the wine you want to talk about.
So in French terms it would need to be a Vin Doux Naturel made in an oxidative style. Not sure they made them in Lambesc but it is probably your best shot.
18th century Tokaji can also be dr>Several years ago at a function moderated by Michael Broadbent we were
I very much doubt if any wine produced in Lambesc France would last nearly this long. However, at least the rich, often had wines from all over the world in their cellars. For example Louis IV was very fond of Tokaji Essencia and called it the king of wine and the wine for kings. Until WW II, Fukier cellars in Warsaw had Tokaji going back to the outstanding 1606 vintage. The very old wines were taken by the Germans during the invasion. Some of the wine fell into the hands of Soviet Marshal Zhukov, who gave an American general some of the 1668 in 1958. Apparently that is the last that has been heard about these wines. In a recent article in Decanter, Hugh Johnson describes a tasting of many rare Tokajis including some from the 18th and 19th centuries. Some were from the cellars of the King of Saxony. These wines were, for the most part, holding very well. In addition, Michael Broadbent rates the 1811 Essence from the Bretzenheim cellar as 6 stars out of 5 stars - off the top of his rating scale based on 5 stars.
Constantia from South Africa was one of the most highly rated wines in the world in the 1700s and was in the cellars of many of the kings in Europe. This is an exceedingly rich sweet wine. What few bottles still remain from this era still often are quite good. I have a single bottle of it that is either from 1791 or 1809 (there was some uncertainty about which of two bins the wine was stored in), and it likely is still holding well.
As mentioned by others, it is not uncommon for some top Madeira from even the late 1700s to still be quite good.
Is it only TBA Rieslings that can last that long? I'd read that 'regular' (non botrytised) Rieslings could be cellared for exceptionally long periods as well - remember hearing that the Schloss Johannisberg estate in the Rheingau has some incredibly old wines (maybe not quite 200 yrs - but I did hear about the 1862 vintage there being extremely impressive, and still remaining in the cellars).
A couple of years ago I had a memorable wine experience, tasting very old wines with Michel Chapoutier from the family cellar, the oldest were wines from the 1790s - early 1800s.
The pre-1800 wine was a sweet red from around Perpignan (!) found in the cellar when the Chapoutier family took over the property back then. The
1802 wine was a Vin de Paille Hermitage. Both were in excellent shape, there was a noticeable deposit but the wine had no hint of oxidation.
"rassilon" wrote in news:keWdnfkcnMWwGHXZnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@rcn.net:
a side question is what kind of closure was used in the mid 1700's? were corks generally in use then? I have read that many wines were not cork closed at that time.
also tomb conditions in Holland, I know that caves are nice but Holland is not great cave country being largely below sea level etc. (Eastern Netherlands are hilly yes, but not technically Holland)
Ah, Rassilon, you have gotten some interesting observations, and speculations, regarding your work. I do not know if they were what you expected, or anticipated, but you did get some good ones.
Now, you realize that you are under an obligation to tell us, a few things:
1.) Title of your work, and release date
2.) What you finally decided to go with, regarding the wine
3.) Tell us that you will do better than the screenplay for "The Year of The Comet," which may have been derived from a literary work, though I seriously dobut it.
When you have made your selection(s), please post a followup to the NG. Besides drinking and pontificating about the stuff, some of us like to read about it.
MY Work... is a work in progress in that I am a first time Novelist. --- Even Worst the Wine story line is intended for the Third and Fourth Book in the series of these book, which I tend to refer to as the "Van Meir Chronicles"
The story line will involve a hunt for missing letters belonging to a woman name Charlotte, who makes her first appearance in book Three about 1763.
At the end of the book, when she leaves Lambesc and returns to Holland, she is gives a sealed bottle of wine (the first produced at this vineyard) and given the instructions not to open it, until our heroes of the story meet again and can drink it as one heart. --- That meeting would never take place as Charlotte dies with in the year.
In book Four, 200 hundred years have past. It is 1970 and the descendants of the original characters of Books One, Two and Three, are brought back together
Some one has broken into Charlotte's underground tomb in Holland and stolen Love letters that were buried with her. The legend of these particular love letters has now become famous, due to interviews about the families history in the Wine Business and their adventure in history being widely published by one of the dependences
(A side note: Having in my youth, sold cemetery property I use to notice that underground tombs use to maintain a average year round temperature about 50 to 58 Degrees, so I chose as part of the surprise that in Charlotte's tomb, laying by her side would be found the "first un-open" bottle over looked by the robbers)
In the story, Charlotte died before they could meet again and the bottle remained unopened and entombed with her. It would be her dependences that would, in the end of the story, sample the wine, when the letters were recovered and the wine is produced.
The story will be "Romance / Adventure" intended more for the Female audience, so I apologize if I have given you false hopes of seeing it appear on any shelf soon, or if you shall even take note of it when it does appear.
But I thank you One and All for your kind attentions and your suggestions, I did not wish to offend anyone, who appreciates wine, by choosing one that would have turn to vinegar in under 10 years.
Two Final notes, I did have to laugh with one person's comments about the invading Germans of WWII.
Since in Book Four, I have already set down in the pages of my story that the Germans had invaded this vineyard in 1942 and stole all the wine, becoming the first World Wide distributors of the Vineyard.
It will be mentioned that after WWI requests world wide for the wine would sky rocket and make the family and their Vineyard a modern success. (good call, who ever mentioned it...perhaps there is a writer in you as well)
Lastly again I had also to laugh at someone mention of the film. "The Year of the Comet" with Penelope Ann Miller....
This film continues to be one of my "Guilty Pleasures" for the last few years, and was playing in the background when I typed my original Post. It was the film that caused me to question "What Wine could survive 200 years intact even in the best conditions..... ( What can I say... but great minds do think alike)
Again ...Thank you, one and all, for your "Very" helpful suggestions.... I now have new directions in which to look.
Mike Tommasi wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net:
Precisely Holland is largely sandy and even in the 1700's starting to be more and more reclaimed land thanks to the famous dikes. I do note that E. Netherlands is hilly and rockier but that is not "Holland." this leads me to question the abundance of underground tombs as opposed to mausoleums in the netherlands, any Dutch in this crowd?
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