1982 Corton Grancey, 1970 Latour, 77 Warres

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Notes from a wine dinner:

Started with a bottle of the Segura Viudas Lavit Brut Rosado for the early arrivals, and went on to:

1999 Burrowing Owl Chardonnay – I skipped this vintage as I didn’t like it on release. I would have been disappointed to find that the duck had become a swan, but no problem, as this wine showed little nose, although remaining fresh and inoffensive. Definitely didn’t get in the way of the conversation.

1982 Louis Latour Corton Grancey – from magnum, and in fine shape. Lovely garnet colour with ruby lights, the nose a fruit based Burgundian delight, and on palate smooth and sweet with excellent length. This wine kept getting better with time in the glass.

1970 Ch. Latour (from magnum) – this has to be one of my favourite Bordeaux, and this bottle was in absolutely great shape, as one would expect given the bottle format. A basically perfect Bordeaux nose of mellow mature fruit, some cocoa, some spice, some vanilla…..ahhhhhh. On palate, the fist was still in the velvet glove, for the tannins are prominent if no longer as hard as before, nor at all intrusive. The element that sets this wine apart from the 1970 Montrose, another of my favourites, is that the Montrose is boisterous and a bit rustic, while the Latour has all of the power (and then some) of the Montrose, yet it manages to be polished and elegant at the same time. Superb balance, and the finish was at least a minute long.

1977 Warres Port – this has always drunk better sooner than the other major players in this excellent vintage, but it has also made me wonder whether it was very slightly lacking or possibly peaked – not every time, but just the odd bottle would put such thoughts in my mind. This one was very good, however, a fully mature vintage Port with such well integrated fruit, only a little hot and with a decent length. It may be time for me to start drinking some of my stash.