At a wonderful restaurant that is a personal fave of the Alferts, and this tempted me tonight. Could not ask for a more perfect, elegant, mature Bordeaux. So graceful. Quite perfumed. Perfectly ripe red fruits bottled up for 40+ years, now exploding from the bottle in full aromatic glory. P&P, no decant. Singing immediately. It admittedly hit its best zone in 30 minutes and then held for the 2 hour meal. Broad range of red fruits, like the entire briar patch, including citrusy reds. Soft leather, old barn blank, sous bois. Silky soft with a flutter of crisp acids. Tannins perfectly integrated. Long sweet tart finish with a touch of graininess.
Just a gorgeous bottle of wine. I think this estate slays in 2016 and 2019. If those years hit the zenith of 1982 - and I think 2016 will - I’ll be a happy man. Truth be told, however, I’ll drink them before that!
Thnx for note, sounds wonderful. i bought a few of these at auction last year. One was pretty much like your bottle and fabulous, the others were over the hill.
Love Branaire! Great QPR too. Re: 2019, it showed fantastic at the UGC tour; I only bought a few EP, saw all those notes of it being sold in Western state Costcos for a song, waited for it to show in FL to grab some more, but, nope, noshow here. Alas.
It’s discussions like this that have me going back to the sale at Internetwines.com. I’ve never received a shipment from them, so fingers crossed based on experiences with other WBers. They have Costco or below pricing on '19s and a ton of great '16s also. They have Branaire 2016 @ $55 and 2019 @ $40. Unfortunately, I also talked myself into some LCHB '19s today since $100 seemed pretty hard to pass up.
Well, mine looked like that when I took delivery about 40 years ago. And while I no longer have any of that ‘82:Bordeaux, those remaining in my cellar from my ancient purchases don’t have such pristine labels.
Or are you saying this was a recent purchase? Ex-cellar?
From a restaurant. I have no idea where it came from and how they stored it, the bottle was in absolutely gorgeous condition, not just the label, but the capsule and the cork as well. And then, of course, it tasted beautifully. I realize when we buy 1982s like that, we are taking a risk. This was priced at $495 on a restaurant wine list that otherwise was pricing at 5X retail, so I took a flyer. You are lucky to have acquired it on release.
Hard to match the memories of that glorious bottle in the OP, but it’s a Monday night, why not check in…
A really lovely wine but more tertiary than fruit. I suspect some storage blips over its life. Showing nicely just more advanced. Lots of earth and barnyard plank aromas. Silky smooth on the palate. Crisp red fruit finish.
Thanks for the update on an old favorite. I wonder if pristine bottles are still as spectacular as they used to be – I had an incredible bottle of the 82 Branaire in 2018 that gave the 82 Cheval Blanc some competition in a blind 82 flight – or if even the best examples have started to decline?
