In more than 40 years of buying and drinking wine, this is the strangest thing that I have ever encountered. This bottle was one of at least a case of 1985 Thalabert I bought in 1987 or 1988, and it has been lying flat in my cellar since that time. Recently, I moved it to a lower shelf where the front of the bottle was tilted more toward the floor. As a result, the bottle started leaking to the point that the ullage was even below the shoulder. It clearly had to be opened and consumed. When I removed the top of the capsule, however, and prepared to remove the cork, I found no cork to remove. No cork! The capsule had never been removed, and the cork had not fallen into the bottle. Apparently, this was a bottle that had somehow gone through the line without a cork and with only a capsule to seal the bottle. That must mean a totally dead bottle, I thought. But no! The wine that I poured was very dark and showed no visible signs of oxidation. In fact, it was drinkable, although nowhere near the quality of the last bottle I had from this vintage.
Very dark, considerable free floating sediment but no crust on the side of the bottle. Very little, if any, bouquet but flavors are what you would expect from an 8-12-year-old Crozes. Dark fruit and tannin. Has not benefited from the etherial qualities that occur in Thalabert with extended aging but reminds me of the bottles I had of this wine in the early 1990s.The bottle has apparently been sealed pretty well by the capsule but without a cork for extra protection or whatever other benefits a cork may provide in terms of aging. Is this what I might expect from a 40 year old screwtop bottle?
No comments:
Post a Comment