Community Tasting Note

The Gilded Sage wrote:

Wednesday, July 17, 2013 - Yes, yes, the wine is lovely in its way. But one tires of Lafite.

After all, what is ever said of this claret's famous bouquet that reaches beyond cliché and convention? What of its savor that sounds like anything more than a romantic poem written by a dilettante who left off reading after sonnet eighteen? Indeed, there is a certain banality to this wine and to the mystique that surrounds it which really has become rather a bore.

Is it a tolerable pairing for filet mignon poached in milk and veal demiglace? Certainly. But given its pedigree one would perhaps expect more.

Further, I should like to express my disagreement with the drinking window presented in this forum. I have always felt that Chateau Lafite is a wine that shows best after a minimum of one hundred years' cellaring (see my note on the 1784 vintage), and can think of no reason why the sixty-one should be an exception. Its relative youth, in fact, probably accounts for some measure of the above mentioned banality.

Probably I shall not drink this wine again soon, though ample supply remains of what began as a hogshead. I shall save it for occasions when I am desirous of a vertical tasting, and in the meantime will concern myself with lesser known crus, the occasional disappointments of which are as the thorns that protect a delicate rose from the vulgar hands of the covetous masses.

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