ChTR kokous 22.5.2009

The end of the Spring season for our wine club, time for a summer break. This time I had the tasting at my place and chose the wines accordingly. I wanted to surprise, and that I did.

• 1978 Château Labégorce 93 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Margaux

  Okay, my second 1978 wine from Bordeaux, and this isn't even a classed growth. Either I like aged wines past their prime, or I have been very lucky. This was just great. The cork was wet up to about 0.5 cm of the top, the wine in the bottle was up to upper shoulder level. The cork disintegrated completely, even though I tried to pull it out very carefully. A beautiful orange rim to a quite brownish red wine, what a fantastic colour! The wine was decanted but immediately tasted, initially rather closed but within half an hour, those wonderful Margaux aromas of barnyard, red fruit, meat and vegetables (at the same time!) come through. This is great on the nose! On the palate, ok maybe this is a past its prime, but still, there are some tannins there, and great tastes of red fruit and a bit of smokiness, but mainly it's about tertiary smells and tastes (just can't find the words to describe them). I really liked this, others thought it may have been better in its day, but I'm really freaking on this kind of wine. Excellent! 50+5+13+16+9=93

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• 1998 Bava Barbera d'Asti Superiore Nizza Pianoalto

  Italy, Piedmont, Asti, Barbera d'Asti Superiore Nizza

  Part of a tasting with an aged Bordeaux, the last time I had this, I thought it had lots of tertiary smells and tastes, but next to a 31 year old Bordeaux, this tastes like a baby! My previous notes say it all, but certainly this wine has some life ahead of it. Got two bottles left, maybe I won't touch them for a while.

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• 1999 Raimat Cabernet Sauvignon Costers del Segre Reserva

  Spain, Catalunya, Costers del Segre

  Tasted as the third wine in a nice flight of aged wines, this the youngest. Once again, my previous notes say it all, very much a Cab Sauv with a French twist to it. Nice, nice, nice. QPR is there completely.

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Wow, a 1978 Bordeaux which was just great, and a 1998 Barbera d'Asti that tasted like a baby, completed with a Catalonia Cab Sauv that was really nice. We all enjoyed the wines, to put it mildly. To crown it off, we tasted an unlabeled fruit wine made by the ex's late grandfather. A nice sweet wine with a bit of bubbles, probably made of apples and black aronia berries and probably made in 2004-2005. A fun fruit wine!