1978 Château La Lagune

Community Tasting Notes (44) Avg Score: 90 points

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  1/1/2023 - blanquito wrote: 94 Points

  Along with the 82 and 85, this has long been one of my favorite vintages of an otherwise overrated, washed out, shadow-of-its-former-self chateau, La Lagune. And the ‘78 used to be seriously cheap for the quality not all that long ago, so I loaded up.
  
  Tonight, I enjoy my penultimate bottle to usher in the baby New Year, and what a terrific way to start 2023.
  
  At first, the best part of this wine is the nose, which jumps from the glass from the word go with fresh, zesty scents and lots of pleasant barnyard, mint, sweet scents of vanilla, and red berries. The palate can’t run with the aromas initially, but with food and a little air, the palate comes on strong, showing graphite, tart cranberries, sour orange, notes of cinnamon and clove, and leather with smooth, long-steeped black-tea tannins on the finish. This is leaner than it used to be 6-7 years ago, but terrific now for all its freshness and zest. I am seriously digging the cool menthol vigor here, letting it be at the same time both light and intense, and leaving a long cooling finish.
  
  This sort of bottle is hard to rate, as it scores highly for its complex maturity and individuality above and beyond its stuffing, and it gets bonus points for coming from an increasingly vanished style, but if forced to reduce an experience to a number, I’d happily go to 94 pts for this, which is a very high score in my rubric.

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  11/7/2022 - GrapeScott wrote: 91 Points

  Well this bottle far exceeded expectations, particularly at its price point ($46 all in at auction). Top shoulder fill, cork in good condition. Very youthful in color with only a bit of faint bricking at the rim. Expressive nose bursting with cigar box and cedar. The palate is medium-bodied and there is a lot of acidity here, with tart cranberry and red currant fruit mixing with the tobacco, mineral and forest floor notes. A classic claret in every sense of the word, and right up my alley. This got better with air, so I think well-stored bottles should continue to hold for 5-10 years. A great effort from this generally unheralded 3rd growth.

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  8/30/2022 - chatters wrote:

  Tried the Coravin on this and the cork shifted so I popped it back in the fridge standing up and then stupidly forgot about it only to find that the cork had dropped into the bottle...I gave it the most gentle of decants and then protected it with argon whilst I cooked some lamb lollipops...
  I must confess I suspected this would be completely ruined but, instead, it proved lightweight, ethereal and almost Burgundian...all slightly sour red fruits, earth, Autumn leaves, softly textured chalky burr, leather and generally rather splendid...Of course a complete outlier but not flawed...

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  2/27/2022 - rocknroller wrote:

  Monthly Tasting Group: Aged Bordeaux & Napa (Baldamar, Roeville, MN): Dark red color. PNP, followed a glass over 2 hours plus. We thought this was pretty wonky, showing some disconcerting tones. I don't think everyone felt the same though. The nose at times showed tobacco leaf and damp forest floor. The palate is full bodied, with a mix of wood and wood spice and dark sullen fruit. This doesn't really show as 40+ years old, but everything was muddled and personally I think this was flawed. Didn't work for me, no score.

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  2/10/2022 - Seth Rosenberg Likes this wine: 91 Points

  (From magnum.) Classic bdx - very fragrant, with tobacco, Lisa says gunpowder, some fruit, some green and stems. Red currants, herbal. Palate is weaker to me - has some herbal and fading fruit, palate shows some acid and tart red blue but herbal. If the palate was like the nose this would be excellent and not just good. Nose - 5-5.5/6, Palate - 4.5/6, Finish - 4-4.5/6, Je ne Sais Quoi - 1-1.5/2 = 14.5-16/20.

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