Favourites

We had a big afternoon and night with The Class Man tasting through a hoard of wines too numerous to work through here, but when all done and dusted, he opened a bottle of his favourite claret – Ch. Latour.  This has been his special wine and it has always appealed to him on a fundamental and basic level that words and scores can’t convey.  So, over the years, he’s collected it and drank it and shared many, many bottles with many, many people.

This night, he opened and shared with SWMBO and myself a 1995 Ch. Latour.  This was indeed a generous gesture, but I suspect he got a lot more out of it than us, and we did enjoy it thoroughly.  Still youthful looking with its density of black-garnet colour, this was classic Latour, with it’s masculinity and virility.  Plenty of black-fruited Cabernet Sauvignon at the core, but without any austerity.  I expected firm tannins and acidity, but no, it was was much softer, rounder, moutfillingly open, but stylish and elegant.  Elegance and Latour?  They usually don’t go together do they?  Well nearly two decades of age has softened it beautifully and jiven some layers of secondary interest.  This was a gorgeous drop, even if it wasn’t the driven sternness it can be.  I can see why it’s his favourite.

As the bottle neared its demise, he asked me what my favourite claret was.  I don’t drink it regularly now, but still taste plenty, but not to have a current favourite.  I thought hard without success, and then just as I was about to give in without an answer, Ch. Pichon-Lalande popped up.  I fell in love with the elegance and sweet finesse in the 1970s.  Not too far from Latour, it’s an opposite.  Feminine, lighter, easier to approach.  The Class Man brought up the 1982 Ch. Pichon-Lalande, one of my all-time greats, my last bottle shared with the AC Electric Man.  This bottle sensational.  Fully-developed for sure, with secondary and tertiary layers superbly interwoven.  This big and ripe vintage coming through as ripeness and weight.  This is one of the meatier Pichon-Lalandes for sure.  So delicious, and still my favourite.