Dale Williams wrote:Steve,
your story re the way they opened over couple days makes me wonder if your 50° temps just retarded things a bit, and these wines are in the closed period that some were at 10 years ago from more typical (55-60) storage.
BTW, are you the Steve who used to post on alt.food.wine 5 or so years ago? Same area.
Other thoughts
I like '66 too, haven't had the ones you list but liked Ducru and Montrose recently.
Certainly preferences come into it. If you don't like ripe vintages, you won't like '82s. But I don't find any overripeness like I do in some 1990 (a vintage I mostly like a lot), 2000, and especially 2003 wines.
Re '79 du Tertre- its not the equal of the Margaux, but it is actually still a fine wine! Probably cost $6 on release, could recently still pick up for $50 or less. Kicks the butt of many more expensive wines. I find there are lots of good '79s, if you don't mind acidity.
Please post notes on the '94 George de la Tour. I have one remaining bottle, lots of disturbing posts re it falling apart- please reassure me.
While the jury might be out as far as '82s aging as well as say '59s, there were folks saying 10 years ago they were showing age. That has not been my experience- I think top wines need time, midlevels are drinking beautifully, and even real cheapies like Gloria and Potensac are holding on. I've drunk most of mine, and they are too expensive for me to buy, so now my interest is academic. But I have to say if little wines can make 25 its hard to say vintage didn't age. The last '82 HB I tasted was with Gilman, probably the other extreme re ripeness and oak to Parker, I see he gave it a maturity range of 2015-2075.
I've always liked '83s, but recently prices on those have spiked too. '83 Cheval has doubled in a couple years. Way out of my range now.
Took me a while to open the 94 BV Reserve, but I had it a few days ago (over 3 days). It was quite different from what I'd tasted at BV a month ago. Much younger and lacking the usual volitility that (in proper doses) gives life to wine. As such, it was notably subdued and showed a lot of hard (French) oak the first night. There was a lot of fruit under that oak, but it was not sweetly ripe fruit. I'm thinking it was a bit underripe. At least for this lot. One must remember that BV stands for bottle variation, and though not to the degree of earlier years, it's still there. In any case, the structure appears on the soft (or fat) side. Just not the usual acidity to back it up...and that would be it's most notable flaw. But the fruit and the wine were still pretty young. Certainly in comparison to what I tasted at BV. But then, my storage temp for this wine has been mostly in the 49-50 degree range. The 2nd night the oak was less prominent, but the wine was still overly fat and lacking structure...which impaired the finish greatly. But since there was no sign of decay and since there is still a lot of fruit, I don't see it falling apart any time soon...and this particular bottle might be going through a dumb period. Tne 3rd night showed even less oak along with a more coarse and tannic wine. The fruit held, but still was not that evident in the finish. I wish these idiots would stop trying to make "Squeaky" clean wines and allow a little bit of VA. Some is necessary...and I recall listening to the head enologist at UC Davis go on and on about how this should be controlled and how there was just too much VA in wines at that time. I thought he was a nut...and there was an enologist from Australia who was quite effective and shooting holes in this idiots arguments. Unfortunately, too many winemakers appear to be making excessively low VA wines. Of course, one can argue that some older BVs had way too much of it...such as the 86. Another point to note is that bottle (like my last one) were obtained much later...and not during the initial release. I have one more of these (mid-release) bottles left. Then I have another case of 94 that I got from a very reliable source. Need to try one of those soon. In another month (or so) I'll be opening an 85 and a 97. And we'll see how those go. I did open my last 87 recently and it was pretty good. A slightly high VA year (which is causing some bottles to decline faster than others), but this particularly bottle had less and was loaded with fruit. But the cork was perfect (and only wet on the end) and the fill was nearly touching the cork. Which is why I had saved that bottle for the last.
