From magnum recently recorked at the chateau. Soft, sublime and beautifully mature Pichon. Earthy, touch of green, smokey, mesquite, red fruit and a bit of iodine on the nose and palate. Plush, silky and round. The finish falls off just a bit but is still super smooth. I love Pichon and this is a great example.
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Had it at a Bordeaux tasting several months ago and delayed my review here. So, I'll keep it short. Still quite drinkable with all of the expected age notes. Soft and glyceriny with lots of old saddle. Developed over several hours, at first closed, then turning more astringent that balanced out the glycerine. Quite fascinating.
From a low-shoulder fill 750. Omri Ram of Chateau Lafleur picked this out as a bonus wine to go with a tasting of Lafleurs and their family of wines. He said that he and the team at Lafleur are big fans of La Comtesse. So we drank it alongside pours of Pomerol and courses of Japanese Wagyu.
It was lovely and lively. This is definitely more polished than the '59, and clearly a better wine. Although at this age, the wine does lack power. So what? It's elegant and delicate--fully resolved. The color was the faded red to pinkish-orange of a fully developed Bordeaux, and the wine was mostly clear. This had banana leaf, wet wood, and dried tobacco with mint on the nose and palate. It has a sweet, light fruitiness and reminded me a lot of a '67 Louis Martini Mountain Fruit Cab I enjoyed recently.
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Bordeaux tasting - with a few pirates: Having this 1961 next to its great, great grandson the 2018 Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande was like watching Twins with hieroglyphic subtitles, or more accurately, looking at side-by-side then-and-now photos of Mickey Rourke. Having a not-fortified wine that clocks in at 61 years old is pretty darn cool, especially given the fact that it was not flawed (aside from obvious age-related progressions) and was otherwise stable and sound throughout the entire tasting. The only thing that required some algebraic acrobatics was the cork. Thankfully the Ah-So in conjunction with some yoga wrist whittling and elbow genuflecting made for a clean pull (eventually) and a tidy pour.
I mean, it’s kinda not wine at this point, but it kinda is. It reminded me a bit of Christmas as a kid at my grandparents’ house. Sherry and warm apple cider flavors abound, with cinnamon stick, toasted hazelnuts, dusty blanket, and cedar notes making for a rather expected flavor profile, but with surprising energy given its stage of development, or devolvement. Hey, if you love old wines, then this is still a performer in many senses. If you like fruit, you might be about 35 years too late. But if you love listening to Roy Orbison “Crying” while thumbing through Aunt Edith’s photo albums with the smell of Lipton’s Onion Soup mix wafting through the room, then the ’61 Lalande will bring you nostalgia the likes of which you never imagined. It’s a warm apple pie kind of experience.
And to be quite frank, my mind went from, “Hey this actually isn’t undrinkable,” to “Hey, this is actually good.” Now, I admittedly don’t long for this sort of flavor profile, and this wine didn’t necessarily change that stance for me. However, if this was the only wine at the table, I wouldn’t be mad at it. Bust out a roasted honey ham and Cuban Cohiba and you’re all set. A special experience to try this wine. Geek-central alert!
Aromas of damp oak and wood, rotting mulch, used leather, wet funk and a beautiful autumn forest.
Flavors of aged dark blue fruits and berries, aged dark plums, a subtle but present spice, rotting bark, wet leaves, wet forest floor and damp fungus. Also a pleasantly lifted fermented note that somehow worked well.
Describing the flavors here doesn't do this any justice, unfortunately, so I'll do my best to explain:
The aromas and flavors move away from the typical tertiary notes that seem to stand out as "normal" tertiary notes. Yes, I described the palate using very similar, if not the same, descriptors, but there's something more to this. There's still life (surprisingly), beauty and grace to the flavors.
It seems that tertiary notes also reside on a spectrum of power and elegance when the wine starts developing tertiary notes. As a young Napa lover, I enjoy the young, fruitful power and flavors but also enjoy it as it calms down with its in-your-face attitude and as it gains more development with time. I believe this is what I experienced in this bottle as well, but with tertiary notes instead. The tertiary notes could have been, and probably was at an earlier stage, awfully strong at one point. But with age like this, those notes softened and aged with so much beauty and grace. This totally opened my eyes and mind to really aged wine. It was like being in a home I've never been to and finding warmth, comfort and solace.
Bordeaux and Beyond (The csimm_M Estate): Super fun wine from the year of my birth brought by friend and former law partner dcrutcher to BDX Fest. On the nose and palate, powerful notes of old library books, grandma’s sock drawer, funk, plums, figs, mixed red fruit cocktail and earthy minerality. Medium to dark sherry colored, medium bodied, medium to thick legs. Medium+ acidity, medium tannins, no heat. VG+ complexity, good intensity and persistence. Bryan captures the mood of this wine well. It started as a curiousity piece—after all, how often does a 60+ yo get a chance to taste a wine from the year of his birth (and an excellent vintage at that)?—with fairly low fill, although not unexpectedly so, considering its age, and a cork seeming ready to decompose completely upon contact with any opening contrivance. Well, on the latter point, big props to ever versatile csimm, who so expertly navigated the ah so that the intact removal of this cork, such as it was, might well have been called the Immaculate Deconception. Expectations weren’t exactly stratospheric, but this was a surprisingly elegant if slightly quirky (think the Maggie Smith character on Downton Abbey) but totally drinkable bottle. Contra to my experiences with other 30+ year old bottles, this actually stayed pretty much in one place over the course of several hours of air. At this age, storage hygienics become absolutely essential and even if immaculate, variation becomes meaningful, so smoke them if you’ve got them, but if you do, you’ll likely be in for a treat. 93+
Wine: the Gathering Old World, Bordeaux (Château de Chris et Melissa): This wine was so interesting. Looking at its medium shoulder fill, the prejudices in my head of it being oxidized and gone were blown away. Boy was I an “aegist”. This was all tertiary in flavor profile with mushrooms, a bit of that flavor profile you get when you lick the sticky part of the envelope to seal it, and some fruit rind. This was a real treat to try. Am I going to let any of my wines get this old? Maybe the 15 Margaux or the 16 Haut Brion? LOL. Knowing me, nothing will get past 25 years though. I am too damn impatient.
I have had a dozen of this Lalande 61, all from the same case, and I have drank 3 bottles of it, all failed miserably, just couldn’t perform, dull and boring. But this bottle rocks! That’s what I expected from Lalande! Despite a bit of greenness on the nose and body, the content was so rounded and charming, it’s easily one of the best for 61! more tasting note in finewines.com.sg
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The last of 14 vintage of PL and amazingly all bottles were in perfesct condition so thanks Mark Golodetz! At first, I preferred the ‘62 alongside but this really improved in the glass and shows great depth with tons of black fruits but also great structure underneath. Powerful but also refined with excellent vigor and such a silky-fine texture. The finish is full and fine with big but supple tannins and the feeling of a great complexity to come underneath with notes of truffles and sweet earth. Like all the best wines made in this year, it will last another 50 years and probably continue to improve. 96+.
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Pichon Lalande Dinner (Racquet Club - Chicago IL): Bottle with great fill and color. Started out slightly musty/ backward, but this really exploded in glass after 10-15 minutes. Complex and unfolding array of black fruit, nuanced spice and forest floor. Very extended and lingering finish. Thanks for bringing something this long, John Holmes!
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Intensely smoky, with more tobacco and cigar box than most high end, cigar shops. The tannins felt rustic and this bottle had moved slightly past its prime. The finish moved from sweet to tart in a hurry, as if it had someplace else to be. If you're sitting on any, I'd find a reason to drink it sooner than later.
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Finally, the last red wine of the night and it did not disappoint. While it didn't have the depth of most of the first growths tonight, it was spellbindingly beautiful and utterly classic claret drunk at its apogee. Bright with excellent intensity and delicious flavors of smoky graphite and quite simply "perfume of Pauillac." Silky and lacy and soo elegant and complex on the finish. A haunting and memorable bottle of wine. My guess is this is what the '96 might taste like at a similar age. At Latour, Crystal Springs 2/1/17
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Tart black cherry, funk, touch lavender, cedar. Crushed velvet texture. Long, svelte, and seductive. Slipped right down. Shockingly gulpable. Lacking the complexity or depth of the Mouton but for sheer sex appeal, this was a winner.
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This was a low shoulder fill bottle (otherwise looked good) that I managed to kick over while doing some cellar work - alas for my clumsiness and I was able to save only a small glass (with ample sediment). I let it settle a bit and then breathed in those beautiful soft earth aromas of Pichon. This particular bottle was quite mature, but lovely and deserved a much better end. My cellar has a lovely fading bouquet now.
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From Jero. Absolutely superb nose of tobacco, herbs, dark fruit and a hint of mint. Very fresh, round and lively on the palate. Love the Pichon silky texture. Perfectly balanced and excellent grip on the long finish. No doubt the format helped the youthful nature.
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HDH auction tasting at Tru (Chicago, IL): Served with truffled gnocchi. From jeroboam. Very herbaceous on the nose with tons of green pepper notes. Showing a lot of secondary characteristics with lots of weedy, tobacco notes. Light on its feet with fully resolved tannins. Lovely vein of acidity to hold things together. Medium-long finish. This is what all claret should aspire to.
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Wines Tasted at HDH Auction (Tru - Chicago IL): From Jero. Sensational aromatic start with lots of cigarbox that made me think of a fine Cuban cigar. Well complemented with lingering black fruit and a very appealing barnyard element. Almost identical on palate, perhaps just ever-so-slightly less nuanced. Very long and elegant.
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HDH Auction (Tru - Chicago, IL): Beautifully spicy nose of red fruit, tobacco, and balsamic. Palate was lush, vibrant, layered, and just perfectly balanced. Loved this wine and thought it had the elegance, power and complexity you'd expect from this Chateau in this vintage.
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The perfume offered tobacco, earth, truffle, smkoe, cassis and sweet cherry scents. Medium bodied and soft in texture, the wine finished with tart cherries and strawberry. Drink up as this was probably better several years ago. On the other hand, who wasn't better 50 years ago?
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This bottle was great looking to my eye with a tattered label from moist storage, heavily oxidized capsule, and a bottom neck fill. In the glass it showed a medium deep red center with oranging rims. The medium intensity nose showed thyme, mocha, wet gravel, forest floor, and a touch of candle wax.
The flavors in the mouth echoed the nose. It was very refined and balanced but also firm with very round tannin. This bottle was silky but reasonably rich and drinking extremely well now.
Given that this bottle was in excellent shape, it appears there is no reason to hold other bottles for the future.
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Fourth Annual White Truffle Dinner (David Burke's Primehouse - Chicago IL): Not nearly at the same level as another bottle I recall from several years ago...oh well. Mostly forest floor aromas with some tart black cherry lingering around with leather and hints of tobacco. Similarly mostly earthy flavors on palate.
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LdC 4th Annual Truffle Dinner (Primehouse): Soft crimson red color. Nice mature PLL nose with sour cherry and some sous bois. Medium sharp red fruit on the palate with a note of iodine. This bottle was good, not great.
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61/82 Bordeaux Dinner (Luxor in Marunouchi): Lighter colored in all respects than the other wines of this flight and the previous. Nose starts lean and cedary, but almost immediately opens into Hakone blueberry and honey jam. This is followed by a flash of iodine and macerated raspberries, along with the more typical and classic CS notes. On the palate, it shows an intriguing note of washed rind cheese, along with dominant ripe plum and dark berry fruit plus earth. Mid-palate really has a lovely meaty depth and the finish shows a little kick of iron. Overall, there is a great remaining richness. If the ’61 Ducru was elegant with a sneaky concentration/depth/richness, then this was concentrated/deep/rich with a sneaky elegance and suavity.
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Elegant but still powerful wine. Lots of leather and cedar on nose with a great array of spice, although not much fruit aroma. Fruit quite prominent on the palate, well balanced with flavors of reduced mushrooms. Long. long finish showcases the earthy elements with some good spice emerging as well.
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Hollywood Wine Seminar Magnum. Mature bricky color. Big fruity nose. Simple and short. Bitter, too. Improved slightly with air. Clive Coates: “both ‘59 and ‘61 old-fashioned, unsophisticated tannins”
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Hugh’s bottle. Good color. Powerful cedary nose. Intense and long but not complex. Blind, I would have guessed it was something like the ‘66 Lynch Bages perhaps. Enjoyable for all that.
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A big contrast to the ‘61 La Mission Haut-Brion I tasted just before it. Much lighter with more obvious elegant fruit. Probably 5 years past its best. Almost sweet. Fine but not great.
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Superb deep ruby color, brilliantly clear. Intense cassis aroma and flavor but not much complexity or length. Even bottles that look healthy can be a little off.
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Starting to look a little old. Not as vigorous or impressive as before. Yet still beautiful texture and smooth finish. Drying out a little at the center.
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Luminescent bright ruby red, orange rim. Obviously fully mature. Nose jumps out, cedar, cassis, oak, maybe a flower or two. Well centered and concentrated bouquet and flavor. Not at all astringent or harsh. Medium body, not a blockbuster. Excellent finish, maybe a trifle too acidic for perfection. This is the most St. Julien of the Pauillacs.
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12/28/2023 - johnh1001 wrote: 96 Points
Another magnum recorked in 2000. Even more sweetness and a longer rounder finish than the last bottle. What a graceful wine.
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12/25/2023 - johnh1001 wrote: 95 Points
From magnum recently recorked at the chateau. Soft, sublime and beautifully mature Pichon. Earthy, touch of green, smokey, mesquite, red fruit and a bit of iodine on the nose and palate. Plush, silky and round. The finish falls off just a bit but is still super smooth. I love Pichon and this is a great example.
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3/11/2023 - dfcrutcher Likes this wine: 94 Points
Had it at a Bordeaux tasting several months ago and delayed my review here. So, I'll keep it short. Still quite drinkable with all of the expected age notes. Soft and glyceriny with lots of old saddle. Developed over several hours, at first closed, then turning more astringent that balanced out the glycerine. Quite fascinating.
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2/22/2023 - misterstarre Likes this wine: 95 Points
From a low-shoulder fill 750. Omri Ram of Chateau Lafleur picked this out as a bonus wine to go with a tasting of Lafleurs and their family of wines. He said that he and the team at Lafleur are big fans of La Comtesse. So we drank it alongside pours of Pomerol and courses of Japanese Wagyu.
It was lovely and lively. This is definitely more polished than the '59, and clearly a better wine. Although at this age, the wine does lack power. So what? It's elegant and delicate--fully resolved. The color was the faded red to pinkish-orange of a fully developed Bordeaux, and the wine was mostly clear. This had banana leaf, wet wood, and dried tobacco with mint on the nose and palate. It has a sweet, light fruitiness and reminded me a lot of a '67 Louis Martini Mountain Fruit Cab I enjoyed recently.
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11/1/2022 - csimm wrote:
Bordeaux tasting - with a few pirates: Having this 1961 next to its great, great grandson the 2018 Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande was like watching Twins with hieroglyphic subtitles, or more accurately, looking at side-by-side then-and-now photos of Mickey Rourke. Having a not-fortified wine that clocks in at 61 years old is pretty darn cool, especially given the fact that it was not flawed (aside from obvious age-related progressions) and was otherwise stable and sound throughout the entire tasting. The only thing that required some algebraic acrobatics was the cork. Thankfully the Ah-So in conjunction with some yoga wrist whittling and elbow genuflecting made for a clean pull (eventually) and a tidy pour.
I mean, it’s kinda not wine at this point, but it kinda is. It reminded me a bit of Christmas as a kid at my grandparents’ house. Sherry and warm apple cider flavors abound, with cinnamon stick, toasted hazelnuts, dusty blanket, and cedar notes making for a rather expected flavor profile, but with surprising energy given its stage of development, or devolvement. Hey, if you love old wines, then this is still a performer in many senses. If you like fruit, you might be about 35 years too late. But if you love listening to Roy Orbison “Crying” while thumbing through Aunt Edith’s photo albums with the smell of Lipton’s Onion Soup mix wafting through the room, then the ’61 Lalande will bring you nostalgia the likes of which you never imagined. It’s a warm apple pie kind of experience.
And to be quite frank, my mind went from, “Hey this actually isn’t undrinkable,” to “Hey, this is actually good.” Now, I admittedly don’t long for this sort of flavor profile, and this wine didn’t necessarily change that stance for me. However, if this was the only wine at the table, I wouldn’t be mad at it. Bust out a roasted honey ham and Cuban Cohiba and you’re all set. A special experience to try this wine. Geek-central alert!
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10/29/2022 - WineBurrowingWombat Likes this wine: 95 Points
Bordeaux tasting with some Napa outsiders (The Embrace of Silence): This came as a huge surprise for me, I absolutely loved this.
Aromas of damp oak and wood, rotting mulch, used leather, wet funk and a beautiful autumn forest.
Flavors of aged dark blue fruits and berries, aged dark plums, a subtle but present spice, rotting bark, wet leaves, wet forest floor and damp fungus. Also a pleasantly lifted fermented note that somehow worked well.
Describing the flavors here doesn't do this any justice, unfortunately, so I'll do my best to explain:
The aromas and flavors move away from the typical tertiary notes that seem to stand out as "normal" tertiary notes. Yes, I described the palate using very similar, if not the same, descriptors, but there's something more to this. There's still life (surprisingly), beauty and grace to the flavors.
It seems that tertiary notes also reside on a spectrum of power and elegance when the wine starts developing tertiary notes. As a young Napa lover, I enjoy the young, fruitful power and flavors but also enjoy it as it calms down with its in-your-face attitude and as it gains more development with time. I believe this is what I experienced in this bottle as well, but with tertiary notes instead. The tertiary notes could have been, and probably was at an earlier stage, awfully strong at one point. But with age like this, those notes softened and aged with so much beauty and grace. This totally opened my eyes and mind to really aged wine. It was like being in a home I've never been to and finding warmth, comfort and solace.
Thanks for listening, btw :P
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10/29/2022 - sfwinelover1 Likes this wine: 93 Points
Bordeaux and Beyond (The csimm_M Estate): Super fun wine from the year of my birth brought by friend and former law partner dcrutcher to BDX Fest. On the nose and palate, powerful notes of old library books, grandma’s sock drawer, funk, plums, figs, mixed red fruit cocktail and earthy minerality. Medium to dark sherry colored, medium bodied, medium to thick legs. Medium+ acidity, medium tannins, no heat. VG+ complexity, good intensity and persistence. Bryan captures the mood of this wine well. It started as a curiousity piece—after all, how often does a 60+ yo get a chance to taste a wine from the year of his birth (and an excellent vintage at that)?—with fairly low fill, although not unexpectedly so, considering its age, and a cork seeming ready to decompose completely upon contact with any opening contrivance. Well, on the latter point, big props to ever versatile csimm, who so expertly navigated the ah so that the intact removal of this cork, such as it was, might well have been called the Immaculate Deconception. Expectations weren’t exactly stratospheric, but this was a surprisingly elegant if slightly quirky (think the Maggie Smith character on Downton Abbey) but totally drinkable bottle. Contra to my experiences with other 30+ year old bottles, this actually stayed pretty much in one place over the course of several hours of air. At this age, storage hygienics become absolutely essential and even if immaculate, variation becomes meaningful, so smoke them if you’ve got them, but if you do, you’ll likely be in for a treat. 93+
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10/29/2022 - bsumoba wrote:
Wine: the Gathering Old World, Bordeaux (Château de Chris et Melissa): This wine was so interesting. Looking at its medium shoulder fill, the prejudices in my head of it being oxidized and gone were blown away. Boy was I an “aegist”. This was all tertiary in flavor profile with mushrooms, a bit of that flavor profile you get when you lick the sticky part of the envelope to seal it, and some fruit rind. This was a real treat to try. Am I going to let any of my wines get this old? Maybe the 15 Margaux or the 16 Haut Brion? LOL. Knowing me, nothing will get past 25 years though. I am too damn impatient.
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7/23/2022 - johnh1001 wrote: 97 Points
Sublime. The best bottle yet from this case
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9/8/2021 - MC2 Wines Likes this wine:
Epic Bordeaux for an Epic Birthday!; 9/1/2021-9/12/2021 (Paris & Bordeaux): A very pretty wine and really special to get to try it. It is not quite the level of the '82 for me but it is in a nice drinking window right now (where the 82 you kindof get the feeling you might even be a bit early).
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12/5/2020 - DesertRat wrote: flawed
Flawed bottle. Mid-shoulder but cork soaked and wine oxidized.
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3/3/2020 - Wine by Bok wrote: 100 Points
I have had a dozen of this Lalande 61, all from the same case, and I have drank 3 bottles of it, all failed miserably, just couldn’t perform, dull and boring. But this bottle rocks! That’s what I expected from Lalande! Despite a bit of greenness on the nose and body, the content was so rounded and charming, it’s easily one of the best for 61!
more tasting note in finewines.com.sg
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9/15/2019 - dream Likes this wine: 96 Points
The last of 14 vintage of PL and amazingly all bottles were in perfesct condition so thanks Mark Golodetz! At first, I preferred the ‘62 alongside but this really improved in the glass and shows great depth with tons of black fruits but also great structure underneath. Powerful but also refined with excellent vigor and such a silky-fine texture. The finish is full and fine with big but supple tannins and the feeling of a great complexity to come underneath with notes of truffles and sweet earth. Like all the best wines made in this year, it will last another 50 years and probably continue to improve. 96+.
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6/22/2019 - G_H wrote: 99 Points
Richter Raritäten Vol.VII (Magnums only) (Farnsburg): Cinnamon, dried herbs, chestnuts, chestnut yogurt, velvety, dense creamy and very very long. WOW!
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9/12/2018 - Burgundy Al wrote: 97 Points
Pichon Lalande Dinner (Racquet Club - Chicago IL): Bottle with great fill and color. Started out slightly musty/ backward, but this really exploded in glass after 10-15 minutes. Complex and unfolding array of black fruit, nuanced spice and forest floor. Very extended and lingering finish. Thanks for bringing something this long, John Holmes!
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5/9/2018 - Lype Likes this wine:
No formal notes
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7/6/2017 - Jeff Leve wrote: 89 Points
Intensely smoky, with more tobacco and cigar box than most high end, cigar shops. The tannins felt rustic and this bottle had moved slightly past its prime. The finish moved from sweet to tart in a hurry, as if it had someplace else to be. If you're sitting on any, I'd find a reason to drink it sooner than later.
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2/2/2017 - dream Likes this wine: 97 Points
Finally, the last red wine of the night and it did not disappoint. While it didn't have the depth of most of the first growths tonight, it was spellbindingly beautiful and utterly classic claret drunk at its apogee. Bright with excellent intensity and delicious flavors of smoky graphite and quite simply "perfume of Pauillac." Silky and lacy and soo elegant and complex on the finish. A haunting and memorable bottle of wine. My guess is this is what the '96 might taste like at a similar age. At Latour, Crystal Springs 2/1/17
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12/28/2016 - englishman's claret wrote: 96 Points
Tart black cherry, funk, touch lavender, cedar. Crushed velvet texture. Long, svelte, and seductive. Slipped right down. Shockingly gulpable. Lacking the complexity or depth of the Mouton but for sheer sex appeal, this was a winner.
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11/19/2016 - tinybubbles Likes this wine: 95 Points
Full, lush and pleasant. White pepper, rose petals and an overall softness to the palate.
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5/13/2016 - ATBridge wrote:
From 375ml bottle. tired and past it's prime. Metallic. Other bottles have shown much better than this one, which is not pleasant to drink.
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4/18/2015 - vindictive wrote:
This was a low shoulder fill bottle (otherwise looked good) that I managed to kick over while doing some cellar work - alas for my clumsiness and I was able to save only a small glass (with ample sediment). I let it settle a bit and then breathed in those beautiful soft earth aromas of Pichon. This particular bottle was quite mature, but lovely and deserved a much better end. My cellar has a lovely fading bouquet now.
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3/16/2014 - johnh1001 wrote: 95 Points
From Jero. Absolutely superb nose of tobacco, herbs, dark fruit and a hint of mint. Very fresh, round and lively on the palate. Love the Pichon silky texture. Perfectly balanced and excellent grip on the long finish. No doubt the format helped the youthful nature.
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2/8/2014 - acyso wrote: 95 Points
HDH auction tasting at Tru (Chicago, IL): Served with truffled gnocchi. From jeroboam. Very herbaceous on the nose with tons of green pepper notes. Showing a lot of secondary characteristics with lots of weedy, tobacco notes. Light on its feet with fully resolved tannins. Lovely vein of acidity to hold things together. Medium-long finish. This is what all claret should aspire to.
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2/8/2014 - Burgundy Al wrote: 94 Points
Wines Tasted at HDH Auction (Tru - Chicago IL): From Jero. Sensational aromatic start with lots of cigarbox that made me think of a fine Cuban cigar. Well complemented with lingering black fruit and a very appealing barnyard element. Almost identical on palate, perhaps just ever-so-slightly less nuanced. Very long and elegant.
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2/8/2014 - tooch wrote: 95 Points
HDH Auction (Tru - Chicago, IL): Beautifully spicy nose of red fruit, tobacco, and balsamic. Palate was lush, vibrant, layered, and just perfectly balanced. Loved this wine and thought it had the elegance, power and complexity you'd expect from this Chateau in this vintage.
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7/6/2013 - fhirsch wrote: flawed
behind the cork taint this was clearly a beautiful wine, with a lot of fruit and life in it.
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12/5/2011 - Jeff Leve wrote: 91 Points
The perfume offered tobacco, earth, truffle, smkoe, cassis and sweet cherry scents. Medium bodied and soft in texture, the wine finished with tart cherries and strawberry. Drink up as this was probably better several years ago. On the other hand, who wasn't better 50 years ago?
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11/21/2010 - fclarity wrote: 94 Points
This bottle was great looking to my eye with a tattered label from moist storage, heavily oxidized capsule, and a bottom neck fill. In the glass it showed a medium deep red center with oranging rims. The medium intensity nose showed thyme, mocha, wet gravel, forest floor, and a touch of candle wax.
The flavors in the mouth echoed the nose. It was very refined and balanced but also firm with very round tannin. This bottle was silky but reasonably rich and drinking extremely well now.
Given that this bottle was in excellent shape, it appears there is no reason to hold other bottles for the future.
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1/9/2009 - Burgundy Al wrote: 89 Points
Fourth Annual White Truffle Dinner (David Burke's Primehouse - Chicago IL): Not nearly at the same level as another bottle I recall from several years ago...oh well. Mostly forest floor aromas with some tart black cherry lingering around with leather and hints of tobacco. Similarly mostly earthy flavors on palate.
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1/9/2009 - winefool wrote: 92 Points
LdC 4th Annual Truffle Dinner (Primehouse): Soft crimson red color. Nice mature PLL nose with sour cherry and some sous bois. Medium sharp red fruit on the palate with a note of iodine. This bottle was good, not great.
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1/20/2006 - jrufusj wrote:
61/82 Bordeaux Dinner (Luxor in Marunouchi): Lighter colored in all respects than the other wines of this flight and the previous. Nose starts lean and cedary, but almost immediately opens into Hakone blueberry and honey jam. This is followed by a flash of iodine and macerated raspberries, along with the more typical and classic CS notes. On the palate, it shows an intriguing note of washed rind cheese, along with dominant ripe plum and dark berry fruit plus earth. Mid-palate really has a lovely meaty depth and the finish shows a little kick of iron. Overall, there is a great remaining richness. If the ’61 Ducru was elegant with a sneaky concentration/depth/richness, then this was concentrated/deep/rich with a sneaky elegance and suavity.
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8/6/2005 - Burgundy Al wrote: 95 Points
Elegant but still powerful wine. Lots of leather and cedar on nose with a great array of spice, although not much fruit aroma. Fruit quite prominent on the palate, well balanced with flavors of reduced mushrooms. Long. long finish showcases the earthy elements with some good spice emerging as well.
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11/1/2002 - sdr Likes this wine: 88 Points
Hugh’s magnum. Very nice, not profound. Pure and reasonably sweet. Very much alive. Simple but fruity and enjoyable.
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2/1/1996 - sdr Does not like this wine: 83 Points
Hollywood Wine Seminar Magnum. Mature bricky color. Big fruity nose. Simple and short. Bitter, too. Improved slightly with air.
Clive Coates: “both ‘59 and ‘61 old-fashioned, unsophisticated tannins”
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1/1/1996 - sdr Likes this wine: 91 Points
Hugh’s bottle. Good color. Powerful cedary nose. Intense and long but not complex. Blind, I would have guessed it was something like the ‘66 Lynch Bages perhaps. Enjoyable for all that.
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6/1/1994 - sdr Likes this wine: 90 Points
A big contrast to the ‘61 La Mission Haut-Brion I tasted just before it. Much lighter with more obvious elegant fruit. Probably 5 years past its best. Almost sweet. Fine but not great.
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4/1/1994 - sdr wrote: 88 Points
Superb deep ruby color, brilliantly clear. Intense cassis aroma and flavor but not much complexity or length. Even bottles that look healthy can be a little off.
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9/1/1993 - sdr Does not like this wine: 80 Points
Elegant bouquet but markedly excess acidity.
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4/1/1993 - sdr Likes this wine: 90 Points
Starting to look a little old. Not as vigorous or impressive as before. Yet still beautiful texture and smooth finish. Drying out a little at the center.
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9/1/1989 - sdr Likes this wine: 93 Points
Luminescent bright ruby red, orange rim. Obviously fully mature. Nose jumps out, cedar, cassis, oak, maybe a flower or two. Well centered and concentrated bouquet and flavor. Not at all astringent or harsh. Medium body, not a blockbuster. Excellent finish, maybe a trifle too acidic for perfection. This is the most St. Julien of the Pauillacs.
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1/1/1988 - sdr Likes this wine: 94 Points
Bright ruby shading to an orange rim, no brown. Extraordinary sweet. A bit of tannin should preserve this great wine.
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