The night of hell

Tasted Tuesday, November 27, 2012 by NewFrenchClaret with 430 views

Introduction

The worst night ever- six wines, all of them straight down the sink.

Flight 1 (5 Notes)

  • 1970 Château Talbot Flawed

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Saint-Julien

    Fill level great, cork was OK, wine was shot. Seemed to have rather a lot of brown gunk inside.

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  • 1970 Château Talbot Flawed

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Saint-Julien

    Second bottle. Again, fill level great, cork was OK, wine was shot. Also seemed to have rather a lot of brown gunk inside.

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  • 1966 Château Grand-Puy-Lacoste Flawed

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac

    Mid shoulder fill- nice color, but the wine was marred by cork taint. Tried to let it blow off but no luck.

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  • 1966 Château Durfort-Vivens 55 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Margaux

    This bottle was in outstanding condition, cork came out in one. Color was a lovely deep red so I had high hopes. Unfortunately the wine was total garbage. Horribly out-of-balance. Many smells- all of them bad. No desire to stick my nose in for a more detailed tasting note.

    In my opinion the wine was not corked or otherwise tainted. I believe this was just poor to start with and has got worse over time. It's a shame, because I rather like Durfort-Vivens today. I can't think why this wine was so dreadful- I think it was just made on a shoestring.

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  • 1979 Château Palmer 90 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Margaux

    Last of the night, and I gave this every chance. Dusty and decomposed on the nose; zero fruit and zero flavor, aside from the occasional whiff of sulphur.

    Again, color was excellent. Given other notes I have to assume this was flawed, although it was the most drinkable of the night.

    EDIT- Left this in the decanter in the fridge overnight, and came back to it the next evening. Way better than before! The nose is a pretty blend of red fruit and forest floor. There is the tinest occasional echo of the wine I smelled yesterday, so I'm now convinced there's a slight problem with this bottle, but generally it's a different beast.

    The palate is simply delicious; sweet and silky with a very, very long finish. Given this was a '79 I would have expected it to fall apart relatively fast, but this needed a day's decanting.

    Upgrading to 90. Without the slight flaw could be higher still.

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