1970s Bordeaux Horizontal

Golden Gate Yacht Club, San Francisco
Tasted Sunday, March 2, 2014 by aagrawal with 633 views

Introduction

This was a wonderfully generous tasting to which I was invited. It's a rare occasion that I get to taste first growths, much less three of them in the same evening. It was very educational.

Flight 1 - Champagne (1 Note)

My first taste of a Comtes de Champagne, and I'm impressed. This is certainly a top tier champagne with excellent full bodied flavor, very reminiscent of a top tier grand cru Burgundy (Coche-Dury?). The only thing it lacked was just a tad more acidity on the palate to make it truly superlative, but this wine would go well with a meal or with just oysters.

Flight 2 - 1970 Bordeaux Horizontal (8 Notes)

The main event! The Lafite and Margaux easily showed the most advanced. This may be that they were traded more often, or perhaps stored improperly and sold in an estate sale due to their value, but these were easily the oldest-tasting wines of the night. Both showed a bit tired, but the Margaux also showed serious funk, maybe brett? My favorite wine of the night was easily the Pichon Baron, followed by the Leoville Las Cases. The others were intriguing and interesting, but these two were wines that I could actually drink all night.

  • 1970 Château Lafite Rothschild 89 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac

    Cloudy, tawny; fully aged nose with cherry fruit, slight red licorice, slight leather; palate is still full bodied, tannins are gone, good acidity, fading flavor; med finish. Still enjoyable, but showing its age. With air, this developed a candied nose. 89-90

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  • 1970 Château Margaux 85 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Margaux

    Advanced, tawny color, cloudy; funky, rotting fruit, red pepper, soy sauce; palate is full bodied, aged vegetal, good acidity. Interesting, but not all that pleasurable to drink. Brett? 85

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  • 1970 Château Pichon-Longueville Baron 93 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac

    Fresher red-garnet color with age-appropriate bricking, nose is great with cinnamon, cherry, lovely green notes, black fruits; palate is still youthful, blackberry, integrated tannin, juicy black fruits; fresh finish. A wonderful mature wine. 93
    Update Day 2: New oxidative notes that weren't present yesterday, fading fruits, but still enjoyable. Showing its age much more than yesterday. 90

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  • 1970 Château Palmer 91 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Margaux

    Red cherry fruit, floral; red fruit, cinnamon, spice, still tannins. Finish short-medium. More about the aromatics than the palate. 91

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  • 1970 Château Lynch-Bages 83 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac

    A bit tawny; Reticent nose; palate is pretty flat; short finish. Not oxidized, but over the hill. 82-84

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  • 1970 Château Léoville Las Cases 91 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Julien

    Color is excellent garnet; nose is excellent with moderately intense complex aromatics, lively combination of vegetal, bell pepper, slight funk that adds pleasure; palate has good structure, fruits are disappearing but it has good balance, acidity, nose is better; finish is medium. Nice, drink up soon. 91-92

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  • 1970 Château La Tour Haut-Brion 88 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Graves, Pessac-Léognan

    Garnet but cloudy; nose is quite intense with cinnamon spice, strong cinnamon, slight earth; palate has great acidity, fading fruit but still enjoyable with more of a savory component; short finish. Interesting, but not exceptional. 88

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  • 1970 Château Calon-Ségur 87 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Estèphe

    Color is great, nose of red fruit, good nose; palate has red fruit, tannins present but integrated, a bit dry towards the end; short palate and short finish. Lower quality than the others here today (very short finish), but drinking relatively young. 87

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Flight 3 - Surprise 1986 Mouton (1 Note)

A very generous contribution from one of the attendees. It's not often that I get to try a first growth from a fabulous year. Unfortunately, as a pop and pour, this just needed a lot more time to show its best. I tried to let it evolve in my glass for about an hour and it did budge a bit in a good direction, but it needs either a 4-5 hour decant or 5-10 years in bottle (ideally more time in bottle). It has remarkable density, silkiness, and elegance, but needs time to develop more aromatic complexity which is currently largely bottled up.

  • 1986 Château Mouton Rothschild 94 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac

    Deep, deep ruby color, cannot see through; nose has very deep black fruit, blackberry, very balanced, nice component of green but mostly black fruits, very young nose; full bodied, black fruits, tannins don't kick in until midpalate, great acid throughout; finish is medium length. This is just far too young, difficult to evaluate, but has great balance. 93-95+++
    30 min air: starts to wake up on the nose, palate is still tight, tannic. A menthol component comes out on the nose. Lovely wine with great silky texture and obviously dense layers waiting to mature, but not yet at a point where it is enjoyable to drink. If you have any, wait 5-10 years minimum. 94

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Flight 4 - Sweets (2 Notes)

Both were good. The port likely needed air time. The New Zealand Ice Wine wasn't my thing... not quite enough length of flavor for an ice wine to be enjoyable.

Closing

This was a wonderful learning experience. I think that the 1970s showed remarkably well for a less than stellar vintage in Bordeaux. If anything, the first growths were notably inferior to the non-first growths, if only because they seemed like they were better stored. I think the sweet spot for drinking these is probably younger than 44 years but older than I'm drinking them now (10-15 years)... so maybe I'll aim for 25-30 years in general for top bordeaux. The Mouton was a real treat and may be a wine that I have to track down in 10 years when it is drinking closer to maturity.

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