TNs: A quartet of lovely '82 Bordeaux and their friends

[Michael Malinoski]

Albert organized a great Bordeaux tasting for 10 of us at Café Mangal in Wellesley a little while back, and folks showed up with some really beautiful wines. Only 2 of the wines were served blind, and some decanting went on, but mostly for sediment and not very far in advance. As my notes indicate, the 1982’s performed extremely well on the evening, and it was really a bounty of riches that we had before us on the table.

Starters:

2000 Domaine de la Pepiere (Marc Ollivier) Muscadet de Sevre-et-Maine Sur Lie Vieilles Vignes Clos des Briords. This was served blind to start out the evening. It features a nice crisp nose of seashells, lemon zest, minerals and talc—coming across as sort of lacy and fine. It is similar on the palate, with lighter-bodied flavors of sea foam, citrus and minerals carried along by an awakening acidity. The finish is prickly and distinctive. Overall, it is a very nice way to start an evening.

2000 Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte Blanc Pessac Leognan. The color here is getting rather golden, with pale bronze edges. It smells of Lemon Pledge furniture cleaner, yellow raisin, grapefruit and other tropical fruit. In the mouth, I’d have to say that it seems rather advanced to me—with notes of wool and aluminum largely marring the lemon, yellow apple and grapefruit flavors. The wine also seems disappointingly diffuse and watered-down at times and finishes with a disappointing tinny note. I suspect that this may not have been a wholly representative bottle.

Red Bordeaux:

1961 Chateau Laffitte-Carcasset St. Estephe. The first red wine of the night is still a solid dark color at the center of the glass, but with significant lightening at the rim. It smells rather roasty and treacled to me—with plump notes of scorched earth, baked plums, burnt cherries, baked clay, suede leather and Christmas ribbon candy. In the mouth, it still shows plenty of rich fruit stuffing, but it seems sort of monolithic and blunt. Its baked plum and roasted currant fruit flavors power across the palate, giving it a rather dark-toned and masculine personality, but at the same time bringing its decided lack of charm and nuance into stark relief. It does display a smooth texture and actually a nice little bit of lift on the end, but it isn’t enough for me to get past the dull-edged roasted character.

1964 Chateau Latour Pauillac. This was a mystery wine that was served blind. It smells a bit musty when first poured, with some dusty old furniture notes right out of the gate. There are also some sweet purple and black fruit aromas and a fair bit of spices, but it quickly goes downhill from there, turning increasingly volatile and balsamic until it’s hard to really put the glass up to your face after awhile. It feels fairly classy and well-proportioned on the palate—with a nice mouthfeel and texture. However, the flavor profile is dominated by charred campfire wood, darkly-roasted black fruit and menthol notes that are just too charred and cooked for me to really fall for it in any way.

1970 Chateau Langoa Barton St. Julien. This wine is a good healthy color and presents a nice elegant bouquet that is soft and feminine—featuring gentle and rather pleasing aromas of sandalwood, menthol leaf, soft spices, old leather, shag tobacco and surprisingly denser notes of black currant and sweeter dark red fruits beneath. In the mouth, it is wholly-resolved, smooth and easy—with cool, earthy fruit sliding effortlessly across the palate. It isn’t particularly expansive or weighty—more focused along a medium-weighted beam of sweet black cherry, red currant and menthol flavors. There is no austerity or toughness and still plenty of fine-honed aged flavors to this--it is just a bit small-framed and narrowly-focused at this stage of the game. Still, it offers very pleasant older claret drinking and I enjoyed it a great deal.

1982 Chateau Branaire Ducru St. Julien. OK, I really, really like the nose of this wine—with its absolutely classic aromas of cedar wood, jalapeno pepper, aged leather, red currant, mixed peppercorn and dry earth combining beautifully into a fine, classy, perfectly-proportioned bouquet that is just spot-on lovely. In the mouth, it is also outstanding. Flavors of red currants, baked cherries, brown spices and clean earth are smooth and classy, yet energetic and fleshy through the mid-palate. I like the elegant medium-weightedness of the wine combined with its easy brightness and tangy acidity. It is by no means a blockbuster—just a wine that is beautifully-balanced and drinking perfectly right now. My runner-up WOTN.

1982 Chateau Leoville Las Cases St. Julien. This is one dark, serious and powerful bouquet, featuring aromas of smoked cedar, black currants, black plums, roasted coffee and black earth that show immense depth and density and just come across as substantial in every way. While I personally prefer a bit more aromatic charm, I can certainly appreciate the raw feeling of significance that pervades this wine’s bouquet. In the mouth, it drinks like a dark marble statue--with long sculpted lines, seamlessly smooth texture, cool tension and quarry-like structure. It flows beautifully across the palate and lingers long on the extended finish, showing great staying power all night. The fruit is dark and serious, supported by cool but rounded acidity. Again, there is no denying that it is an impressive specimen, and I heard several eager calls for this as wine of the night, but I simply “connected” more with wines like the ’82 Branaire Ducru and ’82 Cos d’Estournel on this night.

1982 Chateau Duhart-Milon Pauillac. CORKED.

1982 Chateau Grand-Puy-Lacoste Pauillac. This wine is still a strapping young pup, in my opinion. The nose is impressive in its vigor and intensity—pulsating with cool, dark, serious aromas of smoky embers, green pepper slices, parched earth, lead pencil and cedar dust in support of a rich core of toothsome black cherry, plum and blackcurrant fruit. The wine is very well-structured, thick-textured and amazingly virile on the palate—with a fair dose of ripe but pasty tannins supporting delicious flavors of rich chocolate, plum and dense black currant fruit all the way through the palate journey. This is excellent stuff that I’d have absolutely no problem holding another decade.

1982 Chateau Cos d’Estournel St. Estephe. I’m just a complete sucker for this bouquet, which features loads of sexy red fruit and exotic spice accents that never lose touch with the lovely savory bits of aged leather, white pepper, tobacco leaf and spaded earth swirling around. Of all the wines on the table, it is right in my personal zone of maximum aromatic pleasure. In the mouth, it is more of a rich, thick, dense and chewy sort of wine, showing lovely depth of flavor and a luxuriant velvety texture all the way through. It is a massive, mouth-filling, teeth-staining sort of wine, but it is oh-so-smooth, so plush, so luscious on the palate. There is a late push from the tannins, but otherwise it is easy just to get lost in this wine—which I pretty much did. My WOTN.

1985 Chateau Gruaud Larose St. Julien. Oh boy, this is another great bouquet here. I love the scents of dry tobacco, crusty leather, sweaty horse, lead pencil, black smoke, rich incense, red currant and red licorice rope that are both classic in tone and gently funky in nature. In the mouth, it is medium-weighted but finely-driven and well-structured. It isn’t particularly rich or dense, just finely balanced in its cherry, red currant and raspberry fruit allied to musky earth tones. It doesn’t have the finesse or the gravitas of some of the other wines on the table, but it just works. It is really a pleasure to drink right now.

1983 Chateau L’Evangile Pomerol. The Pomerol really stood out in this tasting—smelling almost velvety-dense in its port-like aromas of sweet prunes, spiced black cherries, leather and exotic incense. It is rather layered and languid, almost coating the nostrils in its rich tones. Then, on the palate, it is creamy and dense—with a rather rounded feel to the rich and pleasantly spicy flavors. There is definite weight and depth here, but not necessarily the nuance or elegance found in several of the left bankers this evening. There is still plenty left in the tank, as it finishes chewy, dense and powerful. I enjoyed drinking this a good deal, but it was just a bit out of place on this night.

1995 Chateau Grand-Puy-Lacoste Pauillac. This wine features dense and expansive aromas of cherry, black currant, road tar, tomato leaf, graphite and fireplace embers, but also a fair dose of youthful oak to my way of thinking. In the mouth, it is on the warmer-fruited side and maybe even a bit surprisingly confectionary around the edges of its pure cassis center. It is not as structured as many of these wines, though there are plenty of zippy tannins in play. It is a warmly welcoming wine, but the alcohol seems to grow more obvious with time in the glass, so I’d suggest giving it at least another 5 years.

1995 Chateau Pichon-Longueville Baron Pauillac. This wine sports a dark, primal and tightly-contained bouquet of blackberry, black currant, tar, creosote, dark mocha, charred embers and pencil shavings. It is definitely one of the youngest-tasting wines on the table, featuring a big dose of pasty-rich tannins that coat the palate. The fruit is direct and dark but the whole thing needs like 5 to 7 years to unwind.

Sweet wines:

1977 Taylor Fladgate Vintage Porto. I find lifted and brash aromas of licorice rope, raspberries, sweet red candy, cloves, and a little sliver of alcoholic spirits on the nose of this fine vintage port. I think it could have benefitted from a bit more decanting, as I think the depth of aroma was just starting to show itself on the last few sips. In any event, it is a fleshy, dense and virile wine in the mouth, spreading wonderful warmth of flavor throughout the mouth. Fruitcake, spicebox, candied cherries, red berries and sweet caramel flavors are so smooth, so balanced and so finely-textured. This is good stuff.

2006 Alois Kracher Chardonnay TBA #10 Nouvelle Vague. This wine sports an absolutely killer bouquet--full of peach, nectarine, honeysuckle, orange blossom, rosewater, lime rind, musk, spun caramel, cream and botrytis spice aromas that fill up the nasal cavity to the brim with goodness. On the palate, it is a bit youthfully sugary-sweet, but I really enjoy the limpid weight and seamless texture it flaunts all the way through the mouth. I like the way the vanilla paste, honey, caramel, lemon tart, tropical citrus and crème brulee flavors are lifted by tangy and bright acidity—finishing a bit sweet but quite long. It is young, but quite lovely nonetheless.

1989 Chateau Rieussec Sauternes. Here one finds sweet but well-mannered aromas of baked apricots, poached peaches, toasted crème brulee topping, blackened orange peel and fine botrytis spices that show fine breeding and lovely nuance (though with some growing sex appeal the longer one stays with it). In the mouth, it isn’t quite as elegant—showing more directness of flavor and some smoky accents of toasted oak in support of the caramel, apricot, toasted orange and crème brulee notes. Still, it starts to take on some nice layering with time and has a nice persistence of flavor. It seems like a wine with a lot of very favorable qualities that may just need a bit of time to pull it all together into a more seamless whole.


-Michael

[Blanquito]

Great stuff, Michael. I just had the 82 Branaire last weekend, and your note is spot on. That bouquet was captivating.

Cheers,
Patrick

[AlexR]

Wow, what a tasting!

A few years back, there was a BWE convention in New York and the them was 1982 great growths, which was made possible thanks to an Anonymous Benefactor.

One of the shining stars of that tasting was 1982 Branaire Ducru, which held its head high among theoretically more exalted company.

I have one bottle in my cellar, and look forward to drinking it.

As for 1982 GPL, I had a case of this and have had it at friends' houses a couple of times beside. It was outstanding. It may hold, as you say, but it has nothing to actually gain by further ageing in my humble opinion.

Best regards,
Alex R.

[tim]

I'm quite surprised that the 82 Branaire Ducru never was awarded BWE Wine of the Year. Considering how it is performing in not one but multiple tastings and BWE events this year, 10 years after the NYC event, I would like to nominate it for 2012 WOTY.

[AlexR]

Seconded.

Can people find it if they don't have it?

Alex R.

[tim]

It's pretty widely available on wine-searcher, at roughly $100-$200 a bottle.

[Houndsong]

As good as the 82s are (not that I have any personal experience with any of the wines here or any 82s in general from oh, say, about 1986) I'm intrigued because weren't yields, on average, immense in the vintage? I wonder to what extent this was true of the classed growths. If this were typical there then what does this say about the fashion nowadays at least at some notable properties of really small yields?

[Comte Flaneur]

It just goes to show doesn't it? The myth that you need lower yields to make better wine...

Mike thanks for those superb, mouth-watering notes...what you call a vicarious experience.

Your notes on the 83 L'Evangile align with the experience we had with Patrick, the foul-mouthed dirty digger et al in 2010, and on the '85 Gruaud at or non-trophy 80s dinner last year.

Seems like you had a very good experience with all four 1982s. Thirty years on seems like a good time to taste this 'legendary' vintage. We are doing an 82 horizontal here in London in April. I have been quite surprised by the hostility I have encountered to Bordeaux in general and the 1982 vintage in particular here. Particularly from people who don't own any, and who are fond of pointing out that in one particular instance a Penfolds Bin 389 Cabernet Shiraz 1998 ran rings around a Cheval Blanc 1982. Another comment is that the wines are particularly variable...which I guess is hardly surprising at age 30. We shall see what we see.

[Comte Flaneur]

I'm quite surprised that the 82 Branaire Ducru never was awarded BWE Wine of the Year. Considering how it is performing in not one but multiple tastings and BWE events this year, 10 years after the NYC event, I would like to nominate it for 2012 WOTY.

By nominating it you will guarantee it will be considered.. ..then discarded for a more 'thinking outside the box' type of wine like Leoville Poyferre 2009

[Houndsong]

Are you seconding my January 2, 2012 nomination of the 09 Leoville Poyferre as 2012 BWE WOTY? Frankly you flatter with your out-of-the-box thinking quip. As I see it, my nomination was solidly mainstream and front-running, particularly as I've not even tried the wine.

[William P]

Thanks Mike. I've have had a few bottles of 1982 Chateau Grand-Puy-Lacoste Pauillac between 1984 and today, and it has always been a winner. As I recall it was priced around $12.00 upon release. Truly a QPR for all ages.

[Tom In DC]

1982 was a high yield vintage at the time, but there have been much higher yields in great vintages since then.