It was nice of my friend Ed to ask me to fill an empty chair at his monthly tasting group’s latest get-together this past Monday night. I was told only that the theme was wines from the appellation of Margaux. That sounded pretty good to me, so off I went to their regular restaurant haunt with a bottle in hand. All wines were dropped off upstairs for decanting and blind numbering by the staff, so the only thing the drinkers knew was the wine they brought—not the order of the wines nor any of the other wines in the lineup. This made for an interesting tasting, as there was no real rhyme or reason to the progression of wines, which put a premium on deductive reasoning at every step of the tasting.
2005 Château d’Issan Margaux. The color is a dark garnet color with a bright sheen—probably a younger wine. I really like the bouquet of the wine, as it initially offers up a big hit of luscious red cherry to go with a nick of tobacco leaf and green pepper skin. Over time, it folds in some smoky campfire ash aromas, along with sweeter notes of vanilla bean and cinnamon. In the mouth, it is very fleshy and richly rounded, with pillowy contours. It seems to roll across the palate with languid motion and no hard edges. The warm, generous fruit provides a noticeably nice inner mouth perfume. Soft, gentle tannins and a feel of soft oak are present all the way through the wine, but the tannins really wait until the finish to sneak in and coat the teeth with their sheen. It is not overly-structured at any time, and it finishes softly spicy and very perfumed. This is a really nice wine, with plenty of depth and charm in equal measures. When it was revealed as a 2005, I was surprised to find this vintage providing such wonderful drinking pleasure this young. My WOTN. Personal rank 1/Group rank 1
1970 Chateau Giscours Margaux. The second wine looks and smells considerably more aged. The bouquet offers up aromas of dusty rawhide leather, some slightly roasted cherry fruit, bell pepper and tobacco leaf. The roasted quality if a bit off-putting for me at first, but the wine slowly comes around as it pulls in more notes of sweet caramel and a fine ashen element. In the mouth, I never sense that this is particularly deep, as it seems to play only on the high register, with no sense of bass notes. However, it does have plenty of fruit and a really pleasant flavor profile that features pretty spice and incense accents carried along by relaxed blue and purple fruits. It has an easy-going, low-acid profile, but again I yearn for more than just the surface pleasures this has to offer. Coming back to this later in the evening, it may have grown a bit in depth without losing the pretty character, though an unusual briny note seems to sneak in. The finish of the wine dissipates a bit quickly, but leaves behind a soft perfumed note. Overall, I figured this was probably the oldest wine of the night, though I would not have guessed quite as old as it was. Personal rank 6/Group rank 2
1981 Château Margaux Margaux. This wine smells of fireplace ash, dirt, tomato leaf, fresh cut jalapeno, black currant and a little secret stash of sweeter crème de cassis running beneath. It is darker-fruited than its predecessors on the palate, with a good amount of bottom note richness and a sticky black bean and black currant fruit profile that is rather full-bodied. There is just a hint of alcohol and some fine oak-tinged spices, too, but otherwise it is soft-edged with mostly resolved tannins and a good deal of glycerol texture. It turns earthier toward the finish, but the wine stays easy-flowing, full-bodied and dark throughout. Although it surely shows some signs of age, it definitely drinks younger than it is. Personal rank 3/Group rank 4
1975 Château Palmer Margaux. This wine is rather cloudy and murky in appearance, with lots of sediment floating around, and a decided bricking color at the rim. On the nose, it offers up aromas of cassis, liquid caramel, dusty forest leaves and hard-scrabble farmyard dirt. After a while, a nice big whiff of wet cedar wood comes in, but also something I have a hard time pin-pointing, but which I eventually come to describe as soap—which is really distracting for me. In any event, in the mouth this has solid density and presence, with again no hard edges or tannic elements to speak of. The acidity is much more prominent here than in any of the previous wines, but like the ’81 Margaux, it has a surprisingly glycerol feel to the texture. Its blue-toned fruit is sweet and deep through the mid-palate, but the finish is fairly abrupt, with some gentle tannins actually coming in late to provide a bit of a mineral or iron-ore tinge to it. Overall, it has some very nice qualities, but the odd soap note on the nose and the abrupt finish had me marking this down. Personal rank 7/Group rank 8
1982 Château Prieure-Lichine Margaux. Wine #5 is a bit browning in color. The nose of macerated cherries, warm Christmas fruitcake, old leather books, tobacco juice, and some more volatile stewed red fruit notes make for a bit of a weedy funk-fest. In the mouth, though, it is pretty sweet-fruited—filling the mouth with some roasted, rounded red fruit that feels rather direct if not particularly complex. It has easy flow, good body and a moderate-length finish folding in a nice melted chocolate note to go with the tangy red fruit. It seems pleasing enough at times, but on the whole lacks that feeling of extra dimension for me. Personal rank 8/Group rank tie-6
2003 Château Rauzan Segla Margaux. I decanted this about 5 hours before the tasting. It shows the most wood on the nose of any this night, though it is well-balanced aromatically by a significant belt of pretty red currants, raspberries, eucalyptus, cedar and mocha paste. In the mouth, it is dense and fairly thick, with a nice mocha paste profile allied to a mix of wild red and black berries. It pushes ahead rather powerfully, but without any feel of being over-done or amped up. It is just lush and full of flavor. It features a finely persistent finish that does, however, show some obvious sticky tannins. This was one of my top wines initially, but coming back to it later in the evening, the oak has become much more prominent on the palate and the flavor profile has turned a bit prickly. Overall, though, it surely holds great promise for further future development. Personal rank 4/Group rank 3
1975 Château Giscours Margaux. This wine probably provided the most immediate and direct bouquet of the night—showing off lots of sweet raspberry and cassis, anise, foresty notes and a hint of menthol. Eventually, though, it begins to mellow a bit, turning earthier and bringing in an interesting shoe leather note. In the mouth, this features a good deal of lift to the fruit provided by a nice spine of acidic structure. It has big presence and lots of flavor to dispense—with plenty of lively fruit, a good dose of grainy wood and a fair amount of sandy tannins still sticking around. I like this wine a good deal, even as it turns more rigid and structured later in the evening. Personal rank 2/Group rank tie-6
1993 Château Dauzac Margaux. This wine smells of dying camp fire embers, tobacco leaf, black currant fruit and a big dose of bell pepper that combine together in a youthfully exuberant way and display plenty of depth of aroma. In the mouth, full-bodied blue fruits and plum skin fruit flavors are strong and direct. Mocha-tinged tannins are still sticky toward the finish and tend to coat the teeth a bit at this stage of the game. It feels sort of like a ‘tweener—not fully resolved nor quite as obviously exuberant as others in the line-up. It is probably best to wait on this one just a while longer. Personal rank 5/Group rank 5
Overall, this was a fun and educational tasting. No one wine really stood out as head and shoulders above the crowd, but there was good consistent quality for the most part across the board. Fine tannins and easy-flowing grace were for the most part the order of the night. The same could be said of the company and the conversation on this delightful evening.
-Michael