Some more old(-ish) Bordeaux from Alan's collection

On one of the last pleasant evenings before we go into aircon lockdown for the summer, we enjoyed an excellent dinner of roast lamb rack and vegetables on Alan & Linda's rooftop, accompanied by a tasting of another four bottles from Alan's collection which had escaped being drunk over the past forty years!

We opened them all as a single flight and went with them over the course of the next 3.5 hours, hoping to see how they developed.

• 1976 Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande 89 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac

  The fill was high shoulder; there was a lot of gunkiness on the cork which couldn't readily be wiped off. On opening, even with a Durand and great care the last 4-5mm of the cork detached itself but I managed to extract it cleanly without dropping it into the bottle. The cork was soaked through.
  
  10 minutes after opening this was good to go. There was a nice perfumed nose of red fruits with some sort of floral/herbal note added, perhaps violets? The colour was slight brick red but still with some depth. On the palate a delicate, almost ethereal flavour of light red fruit and no off notes. The finish was very short.
  
  As with the previous bottle, after a couple of hours open the fruit was fading and the wine became rather thin.
  
  For me this second bottle in the space of a few weeks confirmed that this vintage is well over the hill, but is descending gracefully down the other side.

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• 1981 Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande Flawed

  France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac

  The fill was low neck. The cork was in good condition (soaked less than half through) and came out cleanly.
  
  The colour was brick red, but still with some depth. On the nose and on tasting 10 minutes after opening quite strong red fruit is apparent, but sadly so too is the unmistakeable woodiness of TCA taint. And it's the woodiness that dominates on the palate.
  
  On returning 90 minutes later the fruit had indeed developed in intensity as suggested by other recent reports, but unfortunately the TCA taint was still present to the extent that we could only wonder what might have been.
  
  To the extent that it's possible to judge, it does seem to me that an unflawed bottle of this vintage would still be in a good place.

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• 1986 Château Dillon 83 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Haut-Médoc

  The fill was low neck; the cork came out cleanly and was half soaked through.
  The colour is slightly more red than brick.
  The nose has some nice red fruit and some complexity with floral notes both of which follow to the palate where there are also cigar notes. The tannins are fully resolved, and the finish is quite short with, for me, a slight metallic edge to it. Having said all of that the wine felt a bit thin and flat overall to me (not surprising for a 35-year old Cru Bourgeois, albeit from a good year!); the host (who had cellared the wine all this time) was, however, very much more enthusiastic about it.

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• 1993 Château Beausejour (Duffau Lagarrosse) Flawed

  France, Bordeaux, Libournais, St. Émilion Grand Cru

  The fill was low-medium on the neck. The cork came out reasonably cleanly and was soaked through only the first 5mm or so.
  
  The colour was still a reasonably deep red with no bricking. Unfortunately though the nose carried a strong and not (for me) particularly pleasant medicinal note along with dark red fruit. These followed to the palate where the weird, oxidised/medicinal flavour dominated and I put it aside.
  
  (The host of the evening, who had cellared the wine for the last 15 years, did not however perceive the flavour to be unpleasant or "off" and professed to quite like the wine.)

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I guess with wines this old, mostly well past their "drinking window" in most people's view, it will always be a bonus to find wine that is a pleasure to drink. On this occasion, the '76 Pichon-Longueville was a nice bottle fading gracefully away; the '81 suggested that this could still be very drinkable, but was, sadly, corked; the '86 Dillon, a lesser wine from a very good vintage, was rather to Alan's taste; and the 93 Beausejour showed clearly that (wine) tastes are very subjective.

Again this was a very interesting educational experience for me, and many thanks to Alan & Linda for offering the opportunity.