One thing I always found interesting. For the first 20-25 years, Cos D’Estournal was always a (the?) crowd favorite at any 1982 Bordeaux tasting I attended. Then, over times others surpassed it. Still, glad I had some ($130 a case on futures) but glad I drank them already. Only now have a handful of bottles of 1982s left. I think I have more Canon ($114 a case on futures) left than anything else.
Jeff, one thing you have to understand is the importance of price to the fondness so many people of my generation have for 1982 Bordeauxs. 1982 classified wines were not just available to wealthier people or to people in their 40s and 50s who had made it. They were widely available to an entire generation of wine lovers many of whom were in their 20s and 30s and just getting really started on wines. The wines were so good (many, many even at a very young age) that we all cut our teeth on these wines. For the first 10 years or so, we were all drinking wines that we paid $5-7 a bottle for like Gloria, Chasse Spleen, Meyney, la Lagune, etc., and waiting for the really expensive classified growths that we paid $8-13 a bottle for ($35-40 for those who really splurged on First Growths - unfortunately I did not) to mature. They came out right as the US economy was recovering from a decade long horrible recession (for example, I think the Dow was at about 1000 in 1969 and in the 600s in 1982) and were really a sign of a brighter future.
I doubt there ever has been or ever will be another vintage with the impact of the 1982 and price had a big part of it for those who bought on futures. You cannot evaluate 1982 Bordeaux without taking price into account. Having bought 1982 futures has been almost like having gone to Woodstock (I was too young for that).
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I couldn’t agree more, Howard, and you didn’t even need to buy them EP (although it was a good idea to have done so). I remember strolling into my local supermarket in early 1985 and buying things like L-Barton, Pichon Baron and Montrose for 100 francs a bottle, so around 15€ in today’s money. Crazy. As for the cheap stuff, it was 5 to 10 francs a bottle…
But to stop sounding like the old fart that I am, there are lots of things today which are a lot better.
I was buying practically blind, using Decanter and la Revue des Vins de France, neither of which covered wines in anything like the same depth and detail as today, along with a couple of really crappy French guides which no longer exist. I knew nobody interested in wine at the time and I was living in a small French market town in the middle of nowhere.
The overall quality of the vintage was such that I didn’t buy any duds, but today, we have a plethoric source of information and guidance, not least good old WB! Of course there is nothing like tasting the wines yourself, but at least today we can form quite reliable opinions before shelling out - and that does save money.
All of us (I imagine) have easy access to wines. At the time, once the wines were sold in my local shops, they were gone for good. Auctions, where I was, were few and far between.
Memories are great. But so what? The same point can be made by oldsters who purchased cases of 1961 First Growth for about $120 per case. Homebuyers that bought houses for 10% of what they cost today, Bitcoin at .8, etc. It is not a relevant statistic, except as a memory.
Isn’t that the job of a god critic/taster to see through that?
Not at all. But the truth is, there has been a lot of progress made over the past 39 years. Today, there are hundreds of strong wines produced in the top vintages. I would guess between 60-100 really great wines were made in 82.
The reality is that when you consider that almost no new oak was used in the aging process, there was very little wine not included in the Grand Vin, second wines were not in vogue yet, yields were enormous and almost no selection was taking place as the Grand Vins were all producing twice as much wine as they release today, the best wines are incredible. That means that if weather conditions like 1982 were to take place today, it would probably be the greatest vintage of all time.
Great post. I’d already gotten the impression that the price increase of wine from the ‘classic regions’ had been dramatic in the past few decades, but these numbers really put things into perspective - very sobering.
There is an element of frustration in knowing that one evaded certain perks by circumstance of one’s birth date, but it’s no use dwelling on that. I prefer to think that there are a lot of stunning values today which might suffer from the price gauging of tomorrow, and I too might one day look back fondly at some of my current purchases.
I am under the vague impression that a long, long time ago - in the 19th century - Bordeaux first growths had very long oak elevage, as in many years. When did this change? And what kind of oak was this?
I believe they have always used French oak. There would be two big differences in 19th century barrel aging and bottling. At that point in time, almost every wine was bottled by negociants. They would pick up the wine in their own barrels from the chateau and either sell and deliver in barrels, or bottle the wines as needed directly from the barrel. It would not be known how long any particular bottle remained in the barrel in those days.
Astounding stuff there! While it probably won’t convince my wife to go all in on the 2016s, I have a mentor in wine who likes to tell the story of when he and another intern (they were in medicine residency at the time) drove from Texas to Florida one weekend to pick up a literal truck load of 82 futures from a retailer he knew. They filled the back of a van up with cases upon cases, and made it back in time for rounds on Monday AM. All his friends and colleagues thought he was crazy, but those bottles since rested in a pristinely kept cellar since the time, and offered a ton of pleasure along the way.
At his generosity, I’ve been able to taste 82 Pichon Baron, Gruaud Larose (82 >> 86 IMO), Haut Brion, La Tour HB, La Mission, Canon, and Leoville Barton. When I ask what the wines tasted like on release (thanks Julian and Howard for your input here), he always struggles to describe the unique combination of fruit weight without extraction, balanced acidity, and ideal tannic structure. I’m still waiting to try LLC, PLL, and Mouton in particular, but wanted to point out that most of the wines from that cellar (Pichon Baron and Leoville Barton excluded) still taste VERY youthful. It has formed my belief in the importance of storage conditions, and well kept 82s (I’m thinking about La Mission specifically) have years if not decades before they peak.
Sometimes, when you weren’t there and you really have no idea what you are talking about, it is best to stay quiet. I guarantee you that the 1961 Bordeauxs were more expensive than the surrounding vintages. However, the 1982s were cheaper than 1978s and 1979s (and older vintages) on the market in large part because the dollar then was unbelievably strong and they were much cheaper than the vintages that followed (because Bordeaux producers felt they left money on the table with the 1982s). Ask anyone who actually participated, it was not like anything else in my lifetime in any wine region.
I have catalogs and price stickers showing what wines sold for. And there is this new invention, it is called Google. All that info is out there.
Were you buying wines in 1983? What 1982 Bordeaux futures did you buy? How did the prices relate to salaries at the time? How did the prices relate to prices for comparable California Cabernet? To older Bordeaux vintages at the time? What happened to Bordeaux prices how quickly over the months fight after futures prices came out and to what extent? Who was buying Bordeaux futures in 1983?
Jeff, I have a lot of respect for you and you know I consider you a friend, but at this point you are really spouting nonsense. You weren’t there, and you just do not know what you are talking about.
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Happy New Year, Jeff!
Well I didn’t know about the god of wine critics at the time (sorry, I’m pulling your leg)!
But you’re right - they weren’t much good.
I remember (sorry, another memory) getting RMP’s book for Xmas, probably in 86: it was a revelation - suddenly someone I could relate to who actually described the wines I was drinking and whose advice I could follow. It was my bedside book for years. I’m eternally grateful to him for all the good advice.
I forgot - as a fan of GL 82, wouldn’t you agree it’s the best ever?
Using that rationale, there would no historians. I am sorry, but one did not need to participate in history to know about it.
Clearly, it is up there. Personally, the 61 is better. But the 82 Gruaud Larose is a fabulous wine.
It was generally Baltic oak. The move to French oak was contemporaneous with the move to more and more Cabernet Sauvignon, in the mid-19th century.
Élevage was typically four years or so before the Second World War, with multiple rackings. But élevage in most major wine regions was generally quite a bit longer (unless the wine was sold in barrel to be served in bars etc of course, Beaujolais “Nouveau” being just one example of a wine that was traditionally consumed that way). Longer élevage, racking and fining was the only way to stabilize and clarify wines before the arrival of more sophisticated filtration technology in the post war period.
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Never heard of a decent historian who completely ignores the people who lived through an event.
Didn’t they also often have more difficulty selling wine in those days and often did not bottle until they had a customer (not sure if this was earlier 20th century or 19th century or both). Could make for the same wine tasting different as I understand it depending on when it was bottled.