Opinions on 1997 Bordeaux

[Carlos Delpin]

I have to admit that over the years I have become a fan of 1997 Bordeaux for current drinking. IMHO the wines in general show great tipicity in both nose and palate, awesome aromatics and great balance that makes them super with food. I have particularly enjoyed Pichon Lalande, Pichon Baron, GPL, Pape Clement, Haut Brion, and others. Thoughts?

[stefan]

I agree that the typicity was good. I drank mine up some time back. I considered them nice luncheon clarets, or wines to buy off a restaurant list when the price was low. I did not think that they would improve much. Have they?

[JimHow]

Was that a 97 Ducru we had in Georgetown Stefan?
We had it two days in a row.
The first was very lovely, fragrant, elegant.
The bottle we had the next day was nice but not quite as compelling.

[stefan]

Yes, Jim, it was a 97. That Ducru was a lovely luncheon claret available at a good price. It was about the same as it was 5-6 years ago.

[Nicklasss]

I did not had a lot of 1997, but I have preferred the 1997 Château Clerc Milon, to the 1998-1999-2000. But i think these 3 needed more years.

Nic

[jal]

The 1997 Mouton (at below $90) was wonderful. First wine I shared with Jim Arv and Ben Nelson at La Bonne Soupe in NYC a hundred years ago. I bought a six pack at the time. Stefan, Lucie and a mutual friend shared one in Tel Aviv in 2005.

I drank my last bottle a year or so ago and it was still going strong.

[Comte Flaneur]

The first growths did well in 1997... I tried Latour recently and even though I considered it to be the weakest of the FG Medocs when I tried it aged five, it has developed into a lovely wine and is still a bit tight.

I agree that Mouton made a delicious 1997 probably the wine of the vintage? But the Margaux we drank at a BWE offline in 2006 in NYC was very good too as is Lafite. Not so sure about Haut-Brion which was once touted as vintage of the century because they started picking on Aug 28...

But the gong must surely go to lowly Ch Poujeaux which made a wine which was multiple standard deviations above where it should have been quality wise in 1997

[Rudi Finkler]

Like Stefan, I drank mine up some years ago... BTW, I remember an interesting horizontal tasting in 2005.
1997 Las Cases was the most compelling wine, Lafite quite excellent, as usual, and indeed, 1997 Poujeaux was better than Latour... Nevertheless, it was a joy to drink the Latour.