at Capital Grille (I-Drive)
April 29, 2017 at 6pm
This event focuses on a horizontal tasting of 1970 Bordeaux. 1970 was the last good year for a while, as the 70s were hard on Bordeaux, which wouldn’t really recover its former glory until 1982.
These wines are from Ron’s cellar, and he’s given us very good prices. I have also donated seven from my cellar to round out each flight to 4 wines.
I can’t recall a tasting where we’ve had so much cork trouble! 17 out of 20 were complete disasters, either falling into the bootle, or breaking into pieces. Ron and I were really worried. And yet I also can’t recall another tasting with such consistently perfect wines! So the corks did their job.
I rated the first flight in the 80s, but all the other wines were solidly in the 90s. The group had a lot of trouble picking favorites, and in the end the ranking could have changed back and forth every few minutes. The top wines were: Latour, Mouton, La Mission Haut Brion, Haut Brion and Cheval Blanc. I suppose that was somewhat predictable in the end. Only the Lafite seemed a bit questionable, light in color and a bit thinner than the others, but still good.
It was very interesting to have the wines grouped by appellation, as we could clearly see the differences of each area expressed, with the aromatic St. Emilion, feminine Margaux, gravelly Graves and lead pencil Pauillac.
I also found the nuances between Latour’s first and second wine fascinating after 47 years. The Forts de Latour was actually both more tannic AND fruitier than the Latour, but somehow less integrated. The buy of the night was the Giscours, which was playing WAY out of its league. I’d look for more of this.
One of the most educational tastings ever!
1970 Bordeaux
My scores are shown below:
The Wines
Flight 1 (St. Estephe)
70 Calon Segur (88 pts)
70 Cos Estournel (84 pts)
70 Montrose (89 pts)
70 Beychevelle (Steve – St. Julien) (86 pts)
Flight 2 (St. Emilion)
70 Evangile (93 pts)
70 Ausone (95 pts)
70 Cheval Blanc (96 pts)
70 Pavie (Steve) (96 pts)
Flight 3 (Margaux)
70 Palmer (93 pts)
70 Margaux (95 pts)
70 Giscours (Steve) (94 pts)
70 Lascombes (Steve) (90 pts)
Flight 4 (Graves)
70 Pape Clement (95 pts)
70 Haut Brion (97 pts)
70 La Mission Haut Brion (98 pts)
70 Coufran (Steve – Haut Medoc – Magnum) (92 pts)
Flight 5 (Pauillac)
70 Mouton Rothschild (98 pts)
70 Lafite Rothschild (92 pts)
70 Latour (99 pts)
70 Les Forts de Latour (Steve) (94 pts)
Acquisitions
| Sold remaining bottles of 1937 Vosne-Romanée at HDH | $774 |
| Wines from Ron for this tasting | $2850 |
Upcoming Events
| Syndicate | August 5 |
Treasurer’s Report
| Previous Balance | $1135 |
| Dues Payable | +5500 |
| Purchases | -2850 |
| Sales (2 bottles of 1939 VR 375+399) | +774 |
| Dinner | -2026 |
| Balance | 2533 |
Please bring your dues of $1000 per couple to the event.