Bordeaux Wine Enthusiasts

My last bottle (sob...)

A healthy maroon opaque. Terrific nose with some... soy beefy notes? On the palate it is medium bodied, with such a classy texture...it nonetheless maintains a dark brooding austere lick (to remind the taster that it is from St -Estephe, which might be off putting to some), but there is nothing lacking in this wine on the entry, the mid or the finish...it is so well poised, a hallmark of an accomplished claret. 

It has an abundance of laconic, cool fruit left with some dark secondary notes of forest floor, cigar box, cinders and ash, and now leather, a sign that this is entering dignified middle age (distinguished grey). It has a satisfyingly refined, lingering, cool, finish. Very similar to the last bottle I tried and a wine at the top of its game. I wish I had been more restrained in ploughing through these. I think this will drink really nicely for at least the next five years. Probably longer. 

On a more controversial note I think this consistently outclasses 1996 Sociando Mallet though I have never tried them side by side, so that is not a definitive judgement. But it would not be controversial to regard Sociando - like Gloria perhaps? - as a de facto Fourth Growth like Lafon Rochet. I have been much more satisfied with the 1996 Lafon Rochet than the Sociando, which I have found to be disappointing at times and inconsistent.

This is a wine that benefits more from drinking at 66F than 62F.

Hmmm... Have lone bottles of 96 Lafon and Sociando...That would be nice side by side comparison to do...

The 1996 Lafon Rochet ia a BWE icon.

The love the 96 Lafon Rochet, it was my first BWE-enabled purchase back in 2003... It might be more consistent than the 96 Sociando and it certainly is in a better place developmentally, but I had a bottle of the 96 S-M recently that showed the first signs of really opening up. But I don't think its quite there yet, whereas my stash of Lafon Rochet have been drinking well for 5 years or so.

Time to reconnect with this forgotten friend.

I bought a case of this from Bassins. I wonder if I have any left? Pre CT purchase. I remember the bottles being somewhat inconsistent.

I have just moved house and was going through my odds and ends and hey presto I found another bottle. I was so emotional...

So this is my Barry Manilow wine. Like Barry Manilow and his 'farewell' tours.

(Maureen went to a Barry Manilow concert and got the t-shirt in diamond encrusted letters. She was the youngest person there by a factor of three decades).

AKR wrote:Time to reconnect with this forgotten friend.

Arv, I can bring one on Saturday.

I took a bottle of this to a restaurant on Friday, where I had duck, beets, and papardelle (a weird combo to me).

After we each had about a half glass, we decided it was corked. I took the rest home and am trying the saran wrap in a decanter thing to see if it can possibly be salvaged. 20 years of patience is hard to throw away.

A glass of Rombauer Chardonnay at the restaurant was press ganged into service instead. That's not a food wine , and I'm not convinced its any better than Cameron Hughes various lot #s.

Saran Wrap does seem to work on mild to moderate TCA.

What is the chemistry involved between Saran Wrap and TCA?

Supposedly something in the saran wrap binds to the whatever causes the taint smell/taste.

This was my first time trying it, and 36 hours or so in a half bottle with a big wad of saran wrap, shaken every now and then, actually worked.

The wine initially tasted like an F, for flawed.

After the saran wrap treatment it was a drinkable, I'd say a B- or so.

It was a remarkable difference, and I wish I'd done this before.

I'd scoffed at all the stories of these before, but I guess the chemists were correct.

It's not magic - the wine didn't taste like the bottle we had with BillP and Glenn - but it made a huge difference versus what we tasted before.

I've done this with plastic wrap, and have seen it turn a DNPIM wine into an under-fruited mediocre wine after a few minutes of swishing a bunched-up wad of wrap in the glass. I think it binds enough of the TCA to make the wine more or less drinkable but does not come close to restoring it to a normal state. Not surprising, since it takes only a few parts per trillion of TCA to negatively impact the wine, and it's unlikely that anything can remove every molecule by adsorption or whatever chemical process is occurring. I think it reduces the TCA to below obviously detectable levels but leaves enough to still mute the fruit significantly compared to a normal bottle.

I've also heard that there are different formulations of plastic wrap and that not all of them have the same affinity for TCA.

Yes I suppose that makes sense. I put a big wad of it in there, kept it in for a long time, and agitated it.

I figured the more that was in contact the better, but obviously there is not much I can do about the various chemical composition of plastic wraps.

Still I'd rather producers used modern closures so we didn't have to resort to this.

I'm not very TCA sensitive, but I've still gotten hit with it 3-4 times in the last year alone.

I had the 2000 Lafon Rochet on Saturday. We quite liked it. It's still too young, but not by a great deal.

AR

The Saran wrap treatment works, but, as David mention, it does not make the wine perfect. Sometime I use it when an irreplaceable bottle is corked.

stefanJr, a supramolecular chemist who is expert at creating molecules that trap other molecules, once tried to create a molecule to capture TCA. He found working with TCA so repulsive that he gave up after one attempt. He threw away the clothes and wallet he used the day of the experiment. The experience made him TCA intolerant.

Saran Wrap does work in my experience too, but I can taste the Saran Wrap unfortunately once used.

Saran Wrap takes away some/most of cork taint depending on how badly corked the wine is but also sucks the life out of the wine. There is no resemblance at the completion of the process to what the wine should be. The saran must also absorb flavanoids,tannins and generally makes the wine featureless and flat. Turns an undrinkable wine into something that you'd never want to drink again anyhow so I personally don't understand why anyone would do this unless you have nothing else in your cellar to pop open instead. Yes there is a talking point about how the corkiness fades but the wine is destroyed at the same time!

From my one experience it salvages something.

The next time this happens I might try this: put some portion in a bottle with saran wrap, and the other without, and then compare, side by side in parallel.

Comparing serially, via memory, doesn't seem to have the same power.