Margaux appellation TN's: 8 wines spanning 4 decades

[Michael Malinoski]

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

[sdr]

Great notes Michael, on an interesting tasting. Did anyone get the name and vintage correct of any of these, even the bottle they brought?

A few years ago, at a small BWE gathering in SF, the '70 Giscours bested the '70 Latour, so when it is on, it is really special. I have not had the '75 Giscours, but other examples from that vintage are consistently harsh, even all these years later. I've read that the '28s needed 40 - 50 years to come around, so maybe that will happen with the '75s as well.

~stuart

[JimHow]

Good stuff, Michael. I keep hearing good things about the 2005 d'Issan, glad I picked some up in NH. Then again, when has d'Issan not made good wine in the past decade or so?

[Michael Malinoski]

Did anyone get the name and vintage correct of any of these, even the bottle they brought?

A few years ago, at a small BWE gathering in SF, the '70 Giscours bested the '70 Latour, so when it is on, it is really special. I have not had the '75 Giscours, but other examples from that vintage are consistently harsh, even all these years later. I've read that the '28s needed 40 - 50 years to come around, so maybe that will happen with the '75s as well.

~stuart

Stuart, I found this group to be rather astute at guessing. The person to my right turned to me at one point and declared correctly that #6 (the wine I brought) must be a Rauzan-Segla from a recent vintage. He said there is a distinctive style of wood or grain of wood or something that always gives it away to him. I think most people correctly identified wine #1 as a 2005, though I was not thinking that. One thing was that nobody thought any of the wines was a Ch Margaux, which of course one was.

The group does a funny progression. They vote on first and second place wines of the night. Then they go around and declare what vintages each person brought. That then begins some debate about what wine is from which vintage, which again I think people largely did well with (I got the oldest one and the youngest three, but was all jumbled up in the middle).

As for the '75's--I could definitely sense what you are talking about regarding toughness within the DNA of the Ch Palmer, but I did not really sense that character at all with the Giscours (though it only managed to score 2 second place votes). As for the '70 Giscours, while I found it to be too focused on the treble notes for my taste, it did receive two firsts and one second place WOTN votes--so it was certainly very well-regarded by the group.

-Michael

[Michael Malinoski]

I keep hearing good things about the 2005 d'Issan, glad I picked some up in NH.

Same here, Jim. I got some in NH, but clearly now I know that it wasn't enough! Sometimes you have to listen to the hype...

-Michael

[Chasse-Spleen]

An amazing tasting and great notes, as usual. I think the Margaux appellation is one of the most fascinating and toughest wines to taste/analyze (but not drink!). You guys had a lot of nerve to do it completely blind. If I was on my way to such a tasting, and my nervous excitement could be measured, whoever was doing the measuring would probably think I was completely nuts.
-Chris

[DavidG]

Nice notes as usual, Michael. Sounds like the group has a pretty interesting time with the "reveal." The only wines in that group that I've had are the d'Issan (also surprised but glad to hear that it is showing so well right now) and the Prieure Lichine, various vintages of which were sort of inexpensive "house wines" for a few years a decade ago.

[Claudius]

I must keep my eye out for the 05 D'Issan
This wine has to me been an underperformer since the 1982 and 1983 vintages (both all drunk now).

Yet I'm surprised at your notes on the 82 Prieure Lichine.
I've drunk a full case of this over an extended period and I always thought it was a nice, dark fruited wine.
Can;t recall any funk, but not drunk for a few years.
The 83 is significantly richer and nicer.

[DavidG]

I did an interesting aging experiment with '83 Prieure Lichine. My father and I purchased a total of 3 cases of this on release. His was stored passively and mine was stored in a temp controlled cellar. I inherited his about 10 years later. We opened one of each on a few occasions, sometimes blind and sometimes not. It was interesting to see the differences between the two wines. The passively stored bottles came into their own earlier and also started to fade earlier. Can't say there was a big difference in how good they were at peak, but the temp-controlled bottles were usually a little better.

[Tom In DC]

Thanks for the great notes, Michael. Your contributions to the forum lately hint that you drink well!

A few comments:

As sdr suggests, the '70 Giscours can be a fine bottle of wine. And at the risk of tipping my hand for a future sdr convention dinner, the '75 Giscours has always performed well, and is not at all typical of its stern vintage. Despite many notes about the wine's charms, I've never had a bottle of '82 Prieur Lichine that impressed me (but we still have a couple in the cellar, so maybe I'll discern its merits one of these days.) Finally, the '81 Margaux might not be an "obvious from its breeding" first growth, but it has always performed admirably at our house for its $25/bottle price tag.

Ciao,
Tom

[Blanquito]

FWIW, Parker rates the 1975 Giscours a 92. Let's give the guy some credit for having tastes as good as ours.

[Michael Malinoski]

Tom, this is the second time I've had the '75 Giscours within the past year and both times it has managed to show mostly a softer side of the vintage. Just fwiw, here is the note from last May:

1975 Chateau Giscours Margaux. This opens with a bit of a musty note, which diminishes with air, but never really totally goes away. The nose otherwise offers up gentle and fine aromatics of red currants, bridle leather, plum skins, warm earth and steeped orange peel. In the mouth, it is medium-bodied and seamlessly textured, with no discernable tannins and a gently aged red fruit profile. Toward the finish, though, some hard-edged acidity comes on strong and sucks the saliva right out of your cheeks. Still, there is plenty of pleasure to be gained from the softly aged qualities of the persistent red fruits.