We started with an excellent Salon 1996. Still tight but extremely promising. Far less evolved than my last bottle.
Olivier Blanc 1945 served blind.
A few feet over the hill. Color was a gorgeous burnished bronze. Guesses were good, white Bordeaux with serious bottle age. Still showed toasted almonds but also more than a hint of Sherry. Probably at its best last week, and we missed the boat. An interesting curiosity, and the oldest dry white anybody had tasted.
1996 Left Bank
Pichon Lalande. Not one of my favorite vintages for Pichon, although it has an excellent reputation. Quite ripe, nicely balanced but I missed that slight green edginess that for me is the hallmark of the estate. Extremely good though and preferred by at least one taster over the
1996 Leoville Las Cases
This is probably my favorite vintage of Las Cases. A brilliant wine with that nervosity that gives a wine its freshness and also length and depth. Still needs time but evolving beautifully.
1996 Lanessan tasted at home a couple of days later. A great showing not far off the other two, but a lot more mature. Easy to like, with plenty of fruit and spices and a medium long finish.
And on a night of plenty the three winning wines.
Pichon Lalande 1983
A perfect mature claret. This was all about gentle complexity.Fully mature but with plenty of life, a touch of herb, bright red fruit, licorice and cedar. A delight. So much so, I bought a half case.
Vieux Chateau Certan 1998
Tasted blind, a show stopper, which we all messed up trying to identify it. The 1998 Right Banks are strange beasts, being both delicious, perfectly ripe, but at same time some of the most precise and delineated wines I have tasted out of Bordeaux. It was close but my wine of the night.
Philip Togni 1995
After Ridge, Togni is my largest holding of California Cabernets. While it is decidedly California in style, it stops well short of any extreme, and ages effortlessly ad takes on an intense floral quality and a fresh Christmas pudding quality, which is probably a contradiction in terms. Of all the wines there, this evolved most in the glass, getting better and better with air. Next bottle will get a three hour decant. Delicious and in a night of greatness, my third best by a hair.