Community Tasting Note

Paul S wrote:

Friday, March 7, 2014 - A "Blended" Birthday Dinner (Garibaldi, Purvis Street, Singapore): As one would expect from a Latour, this was remarkable for an off-vintage wine. I have had numerous bottles of 1981 wines from great properties (courtesy from a few friends born in that year), but this was far and away the best wine I have had from Bordeaux or anywhere else. It started out with a bit of funky wet leaf and chicken poop on the nose, but this faded with time to allow more and more classic Pauillac notes of cassis and dark plums, tobacco and cedar wood, then loamy earth and boiled herbs to slowly uncoil until we had a typical Latour bouquet in all its understated attractiveness. The palate was classic Latour as well, starting from its noble structure of fine tannins and lovely acidity, and then going on to its wonderfully pure cassis notes. This was gorgeously put together, with a real mouthfilling fullness to it, yet one would not quite call it expressive; it had real depth, and yet powerful would not quite be the right way to describe it. Like any good middle-aged Latour, it was still reined in by the slightest edge of austerity, especially as that wonderful transparent fruit melded into meatier notes past the midpalate and then into a beautiful finish that slid away with an almost creamy texture, showing the lightest hints of cedar wood and a nice earthiness trailing behind. This is one wine that truly shows how a youngish Latour can shines on an off-vintage. If one were searching for a weakness, I would say that there was just a touch of softness on the midpalate where there would normally be more muscle. But that really would be nitpicking. This was a great wine. And while seemingly at peak now, I expect it to last for a long time yet; it got better and better in the glass even on the night, with more chew from the tannins and a nicely masculine leather and meat tone coming out with time. I was very taken by this.

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