No matter what your opinion of Robert Parker, the truth is that for all his short-comings he has done an exceptional job of referencing the wines he prefers and his tasting notes and vintage profiles can be truly helpful when deciding whether or not to part with the cash some of today's fine wine costs. The fact is, Parker has a language and, if you learn it, his publication and website can be a constant and accessible reference. So, whenever the occasion arises to taste with Bob, as it does every now and then, I try to attend.
Sitting in a room, sniffing the wine Bob is sniffing and tasting the wine he is tasting, while working through your thoughts and hearing his, allows you to figure out what jibes in your mind with his language and what doesn't. Armed with this experience, the Advocate becomes quite a useful tool and you can delve past the ambiguous numbers that follow every wine's name.
So last night, Trombone, Bubby, Bear, Fittsdoola, and I went to a Left Bank Bordeaux vintage match-up at EWS hosted by special guest Robert Parker. The vintages were '95 and 96, and the wines were served as twins (two chateaux's wines from the two vintages served blind, side by side,
in groups of four.) The chateaux represented were as follows. The first notes are mine; the second are Bob's verbal notes, followed by his published scores. The wines are listed in the order we tasted them.
- 95 Lafite: Black fruit jam, raspberries, spun sugar, and licorice with a boozy greenness on the palate, my favorite of this group of four
- Beautiful balance, spice, cedar, earth, sweet cherry, black fruit, 95 points
- 96 Lafite: Black fruit jam, blueberry, detritus, soy, awesome tannin and currants on the palate
- Beautiful balance, spice, cedar, earth, sweet cherry, black fruit 100 points
- 95 Leoville Las Cases: Black fruit jam, earth, camphor, clay, cumin, cinnamon, aggressive tannins and great focus on the palate
- Hard tannin not open for business 95 points
- 96 Leoville Las Cases: Black fruit jam, cinnamon, spices, tart flat and tannic on the palate
- Hard tannin not open for business 98+ points
- 95 Haut Brion: Black fruit jam, very round nose with miso notes, balanced body supple tannin on palate
- Supple, pure, rich 96 points
- 96 Cos d'Estournel: real funky, cheese, skunk, wood, some green notes, with stones and blueberries on the palate, my favorite of the flight
- Dirty ashtray and barnyard 93+ points
- 95 Cos d'Estournal: flowers booze and clay on the nose with a round jammy hot palette
- Tight 95 points
- 96 Haut Brion: Black fruit jam, pronounced mineral, with great integration on the nose, a subtle attack with crazy minerals and great structure on the palate
- Brilliant sweet cassis 95 points
- 95 Latour: Black fruit jam, black currant, spices, cinnamon, tight on the palate with currants and earthy notes; well integrated tannin
- Big, woody, tannic 96+ points
- 95 Mouton: Black fruit jam, with a saccharine sweetness on the nose, very dry minerals on the palate
- Big, woody, tannic 95+ points
- 96 Latour: Black fruit jam, mushrooms and camphor with a nice round balanced palate and sea-glass on the palate
- Bob gave no notes during tasting but at the end, before labels were revealed, said it was the only 100 point of the tasting 99 points
- 96 Mouton: great big fruit, wood barnyard and grilled sardines on the nose, a lush balanced well-integrated palate, my favorite of the flight; I said that if I were a holder of this wine I would drink about 65% of my holdings over the next three years with some steaks
- Sexy 94+ points
- 96 Margaux: Black fruit jam, capsicum, dog, cassis, earth and truffle, with a big and lush palate.
- Earthy, well integrated
- 95 Margaux: tightest wine of the night, smelled like the inside of a glass sprinkled with black pepper, big on the palate with a sharp lasered focus
- Bob declared he was pretty sure the last two were Haut Brion 95 points
- 96 Pichon Lalande, Black fruit jam, kirsch well integrated and short on the palate
- No notes 96 points
- 95 Pichon Lalande, Cassis and blackberries with great tanic structure a fun drink, my favorite of the flight
- No notes 95 points
My top three wines of the tasting, in order, were the '96 Mouton, followed by the '96 Latour and the '95 Lafite. Popular opinion put the '96 Mouton first, with the '96 Haut second and the '95 Lalande third.
EWS tastings always skew toward the third group tasted. The progression usually goes as follows: everyone is quiet through the first flight, people start talking during the second, the favorite wine is always found in the third, and the fourth is mostly surrounded with idle chat. I am not sure why this is, but I bet you can guess. I can tell you, I seldom see anyone using the spit bucket.
Two of the sixteen bottles I tasted were corked, one subtly and one so offensively I couldn't get my nose near it. I am suspicious how the boys running the tasting did not notice this and remedy it while they were decanting at 3pm that afternoon. I see this as unforgivable. With tickets costing $595 per seat, had I not noticed and declared the wine corked immediately, and insisted on tastes from a new bottle in each case, we would have simply missed that 12.5% of the tasting, most likely without a refund of that cost on our tickets. Although it is true that sometimes wines are just corked, the reality is that there was plenty of time to tell in advance, and these wines are completely accessible enough in the NY market to remedy the situation well before any of the paying customers showed up, as real professionals would have.
As for tasting with Parker, it is great. He is a machine and no one is better at articulating the traits of his kind of wines then he is. However, people, for the large part, show up to these things for one of two reasons. The first wants to see him sniff a wine and accurately declare its producer, vintage, and level of barrel toast, the other wants to see him fail at this same task. As a result, at this point in his career he has gotten good at fading declarations, and hedging his bets with statements like "if it is this, it could be this, but the fun of wine is it is always changing.” You hear him say things like, “Mouton is the first growth most irresponsible about crop reduction, and this definitely shows in the quality of the juice. Mostly the label art and the Baroness’ skill at marketing keep their prices up,” then, later, declare that the Mouton ’96 is drinking far better then the other 15 wines. But how could it be any different? People want Bob to know it all because he has spent 25+ years shamelessly self-promoting that fact that he knows it all. The reality, though, is that he is just a guy who really does love wine, especially these wines, and it is a pleasure to hear him talk about them.
As for the wines, all these makers should be ashamed of themselves. Eight chateaux and two vintages were represented, yet no one wine stuck its head out as truly unique. I really had to dig to find anything past the simple, abusive black fruit jam. There was not a lot of distinction. All these wines tasted way too similar, and this is according to both the world's foremost authority on these wines and little old me. Of course he phrases it more like, "I am surprised by how similar these vintages are drinking, considering the disparity in vintage conditions.”
If you are in the market for top end, monster fruit bombs, these are definitely some of the best. If you want to drink them now, buy the '95 Pichon or the '96 Mouton. If you want a wine with a promising future, buy the '96 Latour (though I suspect you will do better with a well spent Benjamin in Washington State or Montefalco).
I don't see any of these wines as special enough to part with the cash they demand. But then the sad irony is that, if I could afford it, I probably would, because now I have tasted them and I would love to see where they go. That's the charm of the myth of the first growths and super seconds. Even though I know better, I go against my judgment, because they are supposed to, maybe, be great.
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