It’s hard not to romanticize wine when you pull an intact cork from a bottle nearly 80 years old. Looking at the label of the 1947 Château Léoville Poyferré, history taught us that that’s the beginning of the Cold War, the year India garnered independence from the English, the year the Truman Doctrine was signed and the year that Prince Philip married Queen Elizabeth II. It’s remarkably special to think that whatever liquid lay ahead in the bottle was dated back to significant moments such as those. It’s even more impressive when that liquid sings.
In the hours leading up to opening this bottle, which we had won at auction on Sothebys, we were trying to convince ourselves it wouldn’t be oxidized. It’s the risk any oenophile takes with any old bottle of wine, but it’s a risk we continuously love to take. Thankfully, luck was on our side.
Despite a muted nose that showed hints of tart fruit, the palette began to really open up after we slow oxidized the bottle for two hours. Immediately greeted by redcurrants and cherries on the upfront that seemed to fade in and out, we couldn’t have been happier that any semblance of fruit was still left in this bottle. The mid-palette transitioned to more tertiary elements - as we expected - with spices, forest floor and leather being the prominent notes. The finish was remarkably complex for the maturity of the wine, bringing in jam, a syrupy port note characteristic of the vintage and game over a tannic structure that was still very much intact. We might have scored the wine 93 points on the night, but the feeling behind pulling the cork of a wine that old and seeing so much life left in it is an indescribable emotion.
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10/25/2023 - ankitmehra Likes this wine: 93 Points
It’s hard not to romanticize wine when you pull an intact cork from a bottle nearly 80 years old. Looking at the label of the 1947 Château Léoville Poyferré, history taught us that that’s the beginning of the Cold War, the year India garnered independence from the English, the year the Truman Doctrine was signed and the year that Prince Philip married Queen Elizabeth II. It’s remarkably special to think that whatever liquid lay ahead in the bottle was dated back to significant moments such as those. It’s even more impressive when that liquid sings.
In the hours leading up to opening this bottle, which we had won at auction on Sothebys, we were trying to convince ourselves it wouldn’t be oxidized. It’s the risk any oenophile takes with any old bottle of wine, but it’s a risk we continuously love to take. Thankfully, luck was on our side.
Despite a muted nose that showed hints of tart fruit, the palette began to really open up after we slow oxidized the bottle for two hours. Immediately greeted by redcurrants and cherries on the upfront that seemed to fade in and out, we couldn’t have been happier that any semblance of fruit was still left in this bottle. The mid-palette transitioned to more tertiary elements - as we expected - with spices, forest floor and leather being the prominent notes. The finish was remarkably complex for the maturity of the wine, bringing in jam, a syrupy port note characteristic of the vintage and game over a tannic structure that was still very much intact. We might have scored the wine 93 points on the night, but the feeling behind pulling the cork of a wine that old and seeing so much life left in it is an indescribable emotion.
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