Friday 25 July 2014

Vacation Wine Diary - Day 17 - A Bottle Of Wine & A Book From The Greatest Vintage Ever

Dear Diary

We found some different kind of mushrooms in a store nearby and we bought fine fillets of lamb. I thought that a mature bottle of Bordeaux would go along nicely. It sure did!

1964 Château La Tour du Pin Figeac
This only needs a half hour in the decanter before it starts to display beautiful aromas of black currants leaves, clean stables, ceder, autumn leaves and some complementary dog fur notes, which adds to the complexity. A very fine maturity. Low keyed but very fragrant. Very, very good.
The taste is round, mature and silky with notes of red and black currants, graphite, stables, moist earth and dry tobacco. The finish is not that long but has a nice warmth and a lovely mouth feel. This has kept very well over the years.
89p   (tasted 2014/07)


During our vacation I have been reading The Complete Imbiber 7, published in 1964. The Complete Imbiber´s first edition was published in 1957, and is described as a "compendium of entertainment and information to all amateurs of wine and good living". Right up my alley! :-)

There are very interesting chapters with titles as "Drinking for Thrills", Mosel Master (with an interview with Sebastian Prûm-Erz), "Between the Wine and the Glass - the Story of Cork (see an illustration below), "Four Thousands Years of Wine in Art" and the last chapter " What to Buy and Drink in 1965".

And that last chapter is especially a interesting one. This is one qoute that make you wish that there was a time machine handy - "the 1961 clarets, which will generally be available for the first time as this book is published".
And the really astonishing qoute, with todays prices in mind is "the very expensive 1961s" / "the opening prices...to over 60s a bottle for Ch. Mouton-Rothschild" and it goes on to say that even though those price will make the reader decide to sit this vintage out, it would be wrong to do so.
If I have done my homework correctly by checking different websites for translation for money over the years, 60 shillings in 1965 was equal to about 53 Euro in 2005. I haven't bought Mouton- Rothshild in years but I can safely say that it no longer cost 53 Euro on release...

The book ends with a perfect reference to the wine drunk tonight - "More good wine is drunk too young than is poured down the kitchen sink as undrinkably old". I´ll drink to that!



No comments:

Post a Comment