Community Tasting Note

Friday, April 26, 2019 - Top shoulder fill. Had not planned to open this bottle. As I tried to scratch some kind of yellowish resin off the top of the capsule, the resin came off but with it also a tiny piece of the capsule, and to my surprise through the perhaps 1mm large hole, I was not looking at the top of the cork but instead was seeing reflection off the surface of the liquid. Long story short, I had a top shoulder 71 Margaux with a hole in the capsule and no more cork sealing. Hence I cut the capsule with very low expectations, especially when the first pour was showing a fairly strong bricking in the glass, and the the nose had some faint chemical notes. But then on the palate this was showing as a solid mature Bdx and was clearly gaining weight as the wine got more air in the open bottle. Not very expressive or aromatic but a body with round fruit that taste clearly younger than what one would expect from a wine at almost years and from a rather difficult period for Chateau Margaux. Even some tannins are showing with more air. Short finish. Wine holding up perfectly over 2h with improving balance. Overall nothing spectacular but fun to drink (especially if this should be your vintage) and good bottles will certainly still last for years.

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4 comments have been posted

Comment posted by ParisWino:

5/25/2019 9:06:00 AM - Sorry to be a buzzkill, but it sounds like your wine was doctored. Perhaps a small incision was made in the foil on two sides that it could be pulled back; a thin hole drilled; the wine inside was drained (through a syringe) and replaced with another (presumably cheaper, though not necessarily worse) aged Bordeaux; then the foil was folded back and sealed with resin (the top of the hole beneath it too) to prevent oxygenation and hide the crime. Sounds crazy, but so does being able to see reflection off the surface of the liquid through a 4.5cm cork.
Comment posted by pavel_p:

5/25/2019 10:18:00 AM - Possible but unlikely. I saw the wine through the hole because the cork had fallen into the bottle when I scratched off the raisin. Corks falling into bottles at age 50 is not that unusual and my scratching the top of the capsule was likely sufficient to make it happen just at this point in time. The 70s were a dreadful period for Chateau Margaux, and the wine tasted broadly as you would expect. Came straight from a very genuine OWC (of 12 bottles) too, so more likely than not this was the real stuff in my eyes.
Comment posted by ParisWino:

5/25/2019 1:42:00 PM - Aha! Clearly I didn't have all the facts -- I hadn't realized your cork fell into the bottle. Bummer, but better than being the victim of fraud.
Comment posted by Jake Barnes:

5/14/2022 12:48:00 PM - Pavel,

Thanks for sharing this story. For me, stories like this are one of the best parts of experiencing ancient wines—the improbable but true stories of wines that should be compete gonners but are still alive and still bring pleasure!

I had two bottles of 1970 Giscours with mid-shoulder fills. One of them was a dud, but the other one was the best ancient wine I’ve ever had.

When I removed the foil, it turned out the foil was attached to the cork by the thick layer of mold, and it tore away a piece of the cork as I removed it. There was pressure inside the bottle and wine immediately bubbled out. I thought, this is going to be very bad, but it wasn’t. The wine was youngish and very alive and only about 65/35 primary to tertiary characteristics, with very little bricking. It was mature and complex. Beautiful.

What I realized later was that at some point the mold under the capsule must have created a new seal and essentially stopped this bottle from aging any further. Who ever heard of seepage being a good thing!? Well, it was—in this case. It was a complete freak occurrence, but there it is.