Fifty Years Together (3): A Special Present

A Rare and Wonderful Bottle

Staffordshire

Wedding anniversaries are important to the couple involved, celebrations are often more private and involve less present giving than birthdays or Christmas. This rather special year however we received one spectacular present. It came from my sister Erica – seen here visiting Piglet in Ashdown Forest (aka the Hundred Aker Wood).

Erica visits piglet

I am a practising wine buff, and Erica goes to great lengths to find interesting wines for birthdays and Christmases, but for this anniversary she excelled herself. She gave us a bottle of Château Mouton-Baron-Philippe, from Pauillac in Bordeaux's Haut Médoc region of Bordeaux. In 1855 the great and the good of the Bordeaux wine world examined their châteaux for consistency and quality and gave 60 of them the right to call themselves Cru Classé. Ch Mouton-Baronne-Philippe was among them, though then called Ch Mouton d’Armailhacq (and since 1989, Ch d’Armailhac). These 60 were the pinnacle of red wine making in the Haut Médoc, thus the pinnacle in Bordeaux - and thus in the whole world (according to the Bordelais). The people of Burgundy would have argued loudly in 1855 and today other regions (Tuscany, Napa Valley, Barossa Valley and more) might reasonably claim joint pinnacle status, but the 60 from 1855 - all still producing fine wine – remain at the tip of their pinnacle.

Chateau Mouton Baron Philippe

But this is not just a bottle from a top chateau, it was from the 1975 vintage. ‘75 was a good year in Bordeaux and was also the year we were married. We already had arrangements for our wedding anniversary, so decided to hold this over for our birthday celebrations, mine today, and Lynne’s at the weekend when we will be away. These celebrations also involve the number 75.

Vintage 1975

50-year-old claret is a beautiful thing and needs careful treatment. It would have thrown a heavy sediment, mostly adhering to the back of the bottle opposite the label, but it had been unavoidably disrupted by a 4-hour car journey from Sussex. Standard advice is to place the bottle in a vertical position some 72 hours before serving but because of the car journey I left it a couple of days longer. The wine was shoulder-high in the bottle, which is normal for its age.

Next came the challenge of extracting a fifty-year-old cork. I removed the capsule and inserted my corkscrew carefully into the extremely soft cork. With a smooth and very gentle pull I had the top half outside the bottle neck before it broke, which was a little better than I had expected. Had I owned a ‘butler’s friend’ the rest would be easy, but not being so blessed, I reinserted the corkscrew into the lower half of the cork. It would be frighteningly easy now to pull out the corkscrew leaving a hole and showering cork dust into the wine. Holding my breath, I pulled very gently and to my relief (and surprise) the lower half came out intact. All I had to do now was to decant the wine off the sediment, a largely successful operation.

The decanted wine

Then give it a gentle swirl…

Give it a gentle swirl

…and a sniff…

A thoughtful sniff

And drink it accompanied by a duck leg.

And what does a fifty-year-old claret taste like?

According to the textbooks, the tannins and fruit flavours should have faded and been replaced by a subtle, savoury complexity. Our bottle though retained noticeable tannin; 1975 was a year of particularly tannic wines in Bordeaux, so that seemed appropriate.

The following was culled from the notes I found on-line for this particular wine and vintage, and reasonably represent what we saw, sniffed and drank.

Colour: Tawny with a wide rim; heavy sediment

Nose: Little fruit but notes of cedar, leather, tobacco leaf, dried currant, graphite, forest floor, mushroom/truffle, maybe even soy sauce and a whiff of cigar box (classic Pauillac). Wine-writers play word association games, but it feels largely right, though I doubt I have ever handled a cigar box, never mind sniffed one.

Palate: Fruit almost gone, but faint dried blackcurrant or prune. The alcohol is well integrated; the wine has become lighter with age and the acidity more pronounced. The finish is long with savoury notes.

We have had the good fortune to taste a few such Cru Classé wines over the years, but never one of this age. It was an experience I enjoyed from start to finish – even the perilous cork extraction. We are both very grateful to Erica for giving us such a fine finish to our extended Golden Wedding celebrations and a memorable start to our birthday revels.

See Also

Fifty Years Together

Chasing Memories Round Wharfedale
Celebrating at The Angel at Hetton
A Special Present