Our very creative and somewhat playful sommelier tasted us blind on this wine to kick off the line up of wines we'd selected. Light tulip yellow. Some high, mature tones. What the heck is this anyway-mature Riesling? Nope, its waxy texture and weight are more like Chenin or Semillon. Excellent acidity, earthy finish with a bit of funk. Nothing in the way of definable fruit character, just essence of mature white wine. Well, it turned out to be just your basic 38 year old Portuguese white (per the label on the neck of the bottle which noted its 1973 bottling date). Incredible. Who was buying much less cellaring this stuff way back then? By the way, the sommelier has tested the tasting acumen of multiple professionals with this wine and "Nobody has ever gotten close". Sadly, we were not the first, but we did hazard a collective guess about it being from the '70s, mostly because we figured that it had to be older than we honestly thought! As much as we enjoyed the classic great wines that followed, getting a chance to taste an odd rarity like this was equally fantastic.

Medium ruby with some maturity. Brambly black nose. Lean, mineral, and tight with thrilling, powerful acidity that manages not to be shrill, just perfectly embedded and enlivening. Slowly relaxes to gain some mouth feel and a hint of clove spice. Very fine but definitely light for a Grand Cru. Will clearly live a long life and continue to develop, but it doesn't seem to have that extra something to make it great, and it was not our favorite red wine of the night by a longshot.

Much darker than the DRC Echezeaux with almost crystallized candied quality on the nose. Combination of red and black fruit. Round and ripe, especially for the year, pretty big wine, but nicely laced with soil as well. Not as fruit driven as it initially smelled. Ready now and not much positive or negative development in the glass. Excellent though and not the usual cool 1993 profile.

Color somewhere between that of the first 2 wines in this flight. Gorgeous soil and perfumed secondary aromas. Medium weight, perfect balance, savory complexity. So subtle and integrated that it is hard to pick out individual components. Polished and elegant for Clos Vougeot. An underdog but my favorite of the Burgundies tonight. This seems completely mature.

Healthy, even ruby. Glorious mintiness reminded me of 1945 Mouton. Subtly sweet cassis without an ounce of artifice, wood or otherwise. Not a big wine but a model of balance and gentle persistence. Incredibly vigorous, still some tannin to carry it forward. Should make it to age 50 without any effort. A marvel, even for a person like me who is generally allergic to Cabernet. Undeniably great and this from a relatively unheralded vintage of Montebello. Once again, the condition of the bottle was pristine.

Tawny. Lots of sediment. Strange caramel nose. Lean and light with some remaining fruit, but short, tart impression. Clearly past its best and the one disappointing bottle tonight.

Well, the 2 Giacosas were like night and day. Deep and youthful; it too had thrown a significant amount of sediment. As someone else said, you can almost smell the density and intensity of the wine. Pure, beautiful Nebbiolo fruit, but tightly coiled with very little secondary development and still quite tannic. Accessible because of its great material, depth and relatively low acidity but nowhere near ready. It should be rounding into form in another 20 years or so and going strong for many years after that. Has all the right stuff to make a superb mature Barolo, although elegance may never be its long suit.

Faded color but damned if it didn't still have that typical Gamay nose of tart cherries once some mushroomy scents blew off. After all, this is 26 year old Beaujolais! Typical lighter weight. The fruit is somewhat muffled, but what really impressed was a sappy, mouthcoating core that even the Grand Cru Burgundy tonight did not possess. Pretty extraordinary. I pray that all of my fancy 2009 Beaujolais last half as well as this bottle from the oft vilified "king of Beaujolais".

Light golden color. Some honey and deeply pitched stone fruit. Not much petrol and overall, by the look and smell of this, it is hard to believe that this is 45 year old wine. The fruit still speaks in a very clear voice. Perhaps not the most complex or mineral Riesling ever, but truly excellent in the old drier style and showing unbelievable staying power. A jaw dropping finish to a truly amazing night.