Les Premiers Crus (aka Schrödinger's Tasting)

The Ridge
Tasted Saturday, August 19, 2023 by Trickyone with 127 views

Introduction

For many, many years I'd wanted to have a side-by-side tasting of all five Left Bank Premiers Crus of Bordeaux--from the same vintage. For some reason, the stars never aligned to allow it to happen.
A big impediment to staging this in 2023 was that I only had bottles of Haut-Brion, Lafite, Latour, Margaux and Mouton from 1981, a less than stellar year. Did the passing years in setting up the tasting allow the bottles to turn?
Though properly stored since release, these bottles were as dead and alive as "Schrödinger's Cat", hence the tasting's name. Only opening them would tell the tale....

Flight 1 - Welcome Bubbles (1 Note)

Whenever friends gather at my home (nicknamed "The Ridge" because, well, it's on a ridge) they are welcomed with something fizzy. This bottle of La Grande Dame didn't have a lot of bubbles, but it did have character and a winey bite that whetted all appetites for what was to come.

Flight 2 - The Main Event (5 Notes)

I'd been fortunate to buy some First Growths before prices became insane in the mid-90's. Should I have bought more? Probably. But should I also have put cash aside for things like my daughter's college? Definitely. Sure, I'd rather have had all 5 Premiers Crus from 1985 or -6 ('82 was always a little flashy for me), but as it turned out, all 5 of these bottles had matured beautifully and each one showed how truly different they are from one another.
All corks extracted perfectly with a Durand or Ah-So and the bottles were decanted immediately. We tasted and admired the wines, and after a first round of small pours a perfectly roasted beef tenderloin accented by rosemary was served along with fingerling potatoes and a small salad.

Flight 3 - Something Sweet (1 Note)

When I lived in Dallas, organized tastings at my home always ended with a bottle of my first true wine love: A sweet Mosel Riesling. What a beauty this was! It was served with simple shortbread cookies. While no one dunked (thank you for that), I'm sure a few of us were tempted to do so!!

Closing

To have a tasting where the youngest wine was a 35-year-old Champagne and there was not an off note in any of the bottles was a minor miracle to say the least. This was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me, and possibly for my friends, and it was something I'll remember for a very long time.

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