Retiring with Château Lafite

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Some wines are so engaging that they bypass our analytical faculties and express their flavors with emotion – their presence demands contemplation, not necessarily of the wine itself, but of our own journey to the current moment. The bottle of 1986 Château Lafite Rothschild that my mother and I shared to celebrate her retirement is one such wine.

In many ways, this wine was a diametrically opposing force to a previous bottle of '81 Château Leoville Las Cases, responsible for restoring a sort of balance to my oenological universe. Did the the Las-Cases provide the shadow that permitted the transient beauty of the Lafite to shine a bit brighter than it may have otherwise? Was I swept away by my emotions, failing to recognize that the Lafite was simply a mediocre bottle of wine?

Whether disappointing or transcendent, aged wines are always an emotional journey that reveal deeper meaning than the flavors in the bottle. The nose on the '86 Lafite gave off intense aromas of spice, molasses, brown sugar, and leather. Supple and elegant flavors of intense black currant and cedar are perfectly nestled inside a fantastic structure of lively acidity and reserved tannins. Tertiary notes of truffle and mushroom carry through the long finish.

“It is because everything must come to an end that everything is so beautiful.”

— Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz

Château Pontet-Canet 2010

It was a year of unusual weather. The 2010 Bordeaux vintage got off to a late start after an especially frigid winter. A wet June gave way to a hot and particularly arid summer, just the right conditions to concentrate the grapes. Cool, damp nights at the start of Fall helped bolster acidity, creating a nicely balanced vintage despite lower yields.

The 2010 Pontet-Canet is a classic Pauillac with a captivating blackcurrant liqueur, rose petals, and violet aroma. It is a brooding crimson in color, thinning slightly toward the edge. The wine is intense and complex while retaining a sense of elegance that prevents it from feeling heavy or tiring. This Bordeaux shows notes of fig, blackberry, cherry, and currant on the palate. The long, satisfying finish brings flavors of leather and tobacco. A tertiary note of earthy mushrooms is faint but unmistakably present.

Offering remarkable depth and complexity, the 2010 vintage of Pontet-Canet might be one of the great wines of this century. I've tasted a good share of Premier Cru Bordeaux, and this wine offers serious competition to the five legendary estates. I look forward to tasting this wine again alongside the 2019 vintage in another decade.

A Lesson of Death and Beauty

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I have a love/hate relationship with vintage wine, but the very traits I have come to hate are also the source of my passion. These opposite yet interconnected forces, this frustrating duality, came into focus when a Sommelier recently opened one of my bottles of 1981 vintage Chateau Leoville Las Cases Bordeaux.

This bottle had come to the end of a long journey. Forty-two years ago, the vineyard's grapes were carefully tended to over an entire growing season, hand-picked, sorted, and processed. Some of the hands that picked the grapes likely belong to people who have since passed. These grapes were survivors of the deluge of rain that consumed the first half of October that year. The bottle was cellared for decades in a temperature-controlled environment by multiple owners. There were thousands of opportunities for a mishap, but there it was forty-two years later, sitting on the bar of my favorite local restaurant. Cutting the foil wrapper revealed a white powdery substance overtaking the liquid-soaked cork, an ominous foreshadowing of what would come. The wine exhibited an initial hint of mustiness with a short, funk-laced whisper of cassis. It was the taste of oenological expiration. At an unknown time within the last four decades, the wine had died.

My reaction was not disappointment or irritation but a general sense of loss. This wine was painstakingly crafted by a team of passionate people for the purpose of bringing joy, and it never had the chance to realize this goal. Instead, it served as an austere reminder of time's relentless flow, a poignant lesson not to squander our singular opportunity to bring a measure of joy to those around us, and a warning of the precious immediacy to life. Time is slowly consuming us all, and like this bottle of wine, we have but one chance to leave our mark.

Perhaps this is the very source of my passion for wine. Even many of our happiest moments are laced with a sense of melancholy because we know it can't last forever. The emotional power is drawn from this very duality because it's the contrast of one that provides vibrance for the other – light and shadow, life and death.

Château Pontet-Canet 2019

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My pilgrimage through the landscape of French viticulture continues with another vintage of Château Pontet-Canet. I previously tasted the 2006 vintage, and though I enjoyed it, the 2019 provides an entirely different tasting experience that very closely matches my conceptual ideal of what a Bordeaux should be.

The 2019 Pontet-Canet bursts with black currant, plum, and dark chocolate. Notes of tobacco and cedar gently penetrate the base of dark fruit in the long finish. The wine possesses an uncanny lightness on the palate despite exhibiting intense, rich flavors. Interestingly, this wine's most unique aspect may be how it effortlessly navigates this apparent contradiction.

The tannins are slightly sharp and decoupled, but I’m not surprised, given the youth of this vintage. Given a decade in the cellar, the 2019 Pontet-Canet may be close to perfect.

Fratelli Giacosa Basarin Vigna Gianmaté 2015

I have a complicated relationship with the Fratelli Giacosa Basarin Vigna Gianmaté. After my first sip, I contemplated pouring the remainder of the bottle down the drain. Like any good narrative, this bottle contained a plot twist with an unexpected outcome. This Barbaresco is an excellent example of a high-quality wine that doesn't show well straight from the bottle but transforms after decanting. Immediately after opening, the wine is completely out of balance, possessing an impenetrable wall of oak, vanilla, tobacco, and earth that masks any hint of fruit. I consider decanting this wine to be absolutely essential, so my tasting notes describe my experience after allowing one hour of aeration.

Decanting the wine puts the intense garnet red color on full display. There is more sediment than expected for a wine possessing less than a decade of age. The Basarin Vigna Gianmaté 2015 tastes predominantly of cherry, bolstered with an assertive background of oak and vanilla and an earthy finish. The wine is well structured with ample acidity to balance the tannins.