What I Tasted on My Spring Break - SPEC's Liquors

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The beautiful chateau
of Cos d’Estournel.
It is widely known that
Cos's first harvests were
sold in India, where the
wines graced the
sumptuous tables of
Maharajahs and
Nabobs. The famous
Pagodas which
surmount Cos's cellars
and door, sent from the
palace of Zanzibar,
symbolize this
pioneering break out
into the world trade.
It took me awhile to learn to appreciate Pauillac first growth Ch. Lafite. Due to its weightless, even ethereal style, Ch. Lafite is difficult to evaluate young. As
Lafite ages, it turns into that something so special that it can sit atop the Bordeaux pyramid with Latour, Margaux, Cheval Blanc, and Haut Brion. It took me a
few years to see the path from point A to point B. Lafite is all about elegance and perfume, subtlety and integration. Nothing sticks out and everything fits.
Lafite is not a blockbuster but it doesn’t lack power; it is just seamlessly integrated. The fruit is red and black and the perfume ranges across berries, tobacco,
tea, berry liqueur, and gravelly-minerally earth. The second wine of Ch. Lafite is Carruades de Lafite.
Leading first growth Ch. Latour is one of the three most consistently great properties in Bordeaux. I’ve never tasted a Latour I didn’t enjoy – and that includes
some notorious vintages such as 1991. In great years, Ch. Latour is the blockbuster monster of the Medoc. In good years, it is still big and typical but director
Frederic Engerer has the good sense and the finesse to scale it back so the wine fits the vintage. He makes the best Latour possible with what each vintage gives
him while still being true to Latour. Latour is all about black fruit and ripeness with layers and layers of complexity from the fruit and soils and oak. I usually
find black fruit, pencil shavings, tobacco, minerals, and subtle but present oak. When very young, the wines can have an almost painful intensity. When
developed, Latour is sublime, rich, and endlessly fascinating to drink. Ch. Latour commercializes three wines: the Grand Vin de Ch. Latour, a second wine
called Les Forts de Latour, and a third wine labeled Pauillac. Les Forts de Latour and Pavillon Rouge du Ch. Margaux are the best of the second wines of
Bordeaux. Some Bordeaux aficionados refer to Les Forts as a second wine masquerading as a second growth. That’s actually not far from the truth. Latour’s
Pauillac is more the equivalent of most other properties’ second wines. Both offer earlier drinking glimpses of the majesty of Latour at substantially lower prices.
Tasting at first growth Ch. Mouton also brings tastes of fifth growth fellow Pauillacs d’Armailhac and Clerc Milon. All three are owned by Philippine Rothschild,
daughter of the late Baron Philippe Rothschild. Mouton is usually a great ripe blockbuster of a wine that many tasters say (continued p. 20)