3.11.07

Margaux Aha! Moment

This bottle was one of two from my Tio Yayo's cellar I took under custody, out of maybe five that rolled around from one cousin to another after he was diagnosed 'non compos mentis'. I coulda-mighta-shoulda taken the other three-- they may still be waiting in my aunt Vivi's bedroom fridge, where I was supposed to claim them to place in proper storage...
I'd had a disappointing taste of a 1961 Château Margaux out of my dad's stash-- terribly cooked in the tropical heat-- maybe fifteeen, if not a few more years ago by now-- and this bottle of 1977 Château Rausan-Ségla didn't look very promising: it had probably been stored upright for a long period, as the cork had dried & gotten pushed or sucked in. The old-fashioned lead capsule's tight seal kept the contents from leaking out this last year or two I'd set it on its side, however.
1977 worse vintage of the decade. Red Rivesaltes excellent is the only reference I've found after some cursory Googling...

(Found a picture! On e-bay, wouldn't you know:
Seems a Belgian gent name of Claudio Marius was the high bidder
on a bottle of the vintage-- 22.58 euros, check it out here.)

So I open it with my Dad, (--a week ago last Monday by now, Nov. 9) after finding a decanter faccsimile-- which didn't really do the job, not having the right 'shoulders' to collect the sediment-- not expecting much, but except for the slightly muddied color, the wine seemed OK in the glass. My Dad went into his now usual rant on how this is Tempranillo, which those damn French insist on calling Cabernet, & I did my resigned sigh & shutting-out bit-- but was really surprised & impressed: I got a nose of mostly tobacco & mocha, but not like a full-blown Napa Cab or a Chilean Carmenere, which can come on like Kahlua, more like a perfume, as if cocoa, tobacco & coffee blossoms were opening in the glass...subtle, variable, even a little muted, but very present in its quiet way. I couldn't not share this, so I held back, went for a run, tried to decant some more sediment as I carefully poured what ended up being about 60 cl into another bottle, & surprised my friend Christophe Gourdain, owner of Restaurant Trois-Cent Onze in Old San Juan, by bringing it in.
Being hungry but wanting to keep dinner simple & quick, I agreed to a salad of frisée with 'camembert en croûte', followed by some ravioli of pheasant with mushroom sauce as an appropiate pairing with the wine.
Christophe detected fruit, & aided by his power of suggestion & my hard-working sense-memory, I finally agreed there might be something like dark berry or cherry notes well-integrated into the sensory mix...the wine didn't have the greatest staying power in the glass, but seemed to fill out its fifteen minutes of elusive evolution before softening & flattening out. Yet, each new glass poured from the bottle showed just a little different while still alive...twilight presence, evanescence...I guess that's what Margaux-- or only this particular Margaux?-- would be about...