Lorena Bobbit, Jurassic Park, Nirvana, Chateau Legrange

You may often hear critics talk about the terroir or sense of place a wine invokes with its steely slate reminiscent of Mosel or the refined elegance of St. Julien.  But on the rare occasion I get to try a well-aged wine, I find myself much more fascinated with the sense of time a wine can conjure.  When a friend of mine cracked a bottle of 1993 Chateau Lagrange, I couldn’t help but think about what was going on that year and what I was doing.  I’ll be honest, I was twelve years old when those grapes were harvested, and I spent most of that year reading Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time novels and getting beat up by cool kids.

Fond memories to be sure, but what intrigues me the most is that while I was dreaming about dragons and Quiz Bowl, on the other side of the world Suntory Limited and Marcel Ducasse were in the thick of resurrecting a Third Growth estate with an over 600 year history.  And 15 years later I would enjoy the fruits of their labor.  Somehow wine seems to lend itself to those humbling ’small world’ moments better than anything I know.  It provides a great excuse to slow down and do some genuine contemplation.

The wine was quite enjoyable by the way.  Very herbaceous with smoked meat notes and a twinkle of cherry.  It was an admirable 12.5% alcohol.  Unfortunately the tannin was long gone and so the wine lacked backbone.  But this is something to be expected in an older wine and particularly one that was produced in a rough vintage (‘93 suffered from heavy rains before harvest) or has not been stored properly.

Btw, you can read a great feature on Chateau Lagrange here from the Wine News. The article is from ‘98 but it still has some great background as well as tasting notes for the ‘93. Aside from the ‘tannic finish’ part, these notes were spot on for me.

Cheers

~ by Ben Bell on May 28, 2008.