A 40 Year Old Wine
Ξ April 21st, 2008 | → | ∇ A Day at a Time, Tasting Notes, Wine History |
Antichi Poderi Dei Marchesi di Barolo 1967 Nebbiolo d’Alba
This was a present from my partner for my 40th Birthday last year, one of 2 1967 wines she got me, the other being the Vignamaggio Chianti Classico (Vignamaggio is famous for being the location for Kenneth Branagh’s 1992 movie of Shakespeare’s Much ado about nothing). Wine from my birth year was the perfect present and since then I had often wondered whether either of them would still be drinkable and, if so, when would be an appropriate occasion.
Both companies continue to produce wine so I’d e-mailed them enquiring what they thought about the chances of the wine being worth opening. Vignamaggio quickly responded suggesting their one would be better kept as a memento, since Chianti from that era was blended with white grapes and is less likely to have withstood the rigours of time. Marchesi di Barolo didn’t send a reply, but the more I read about Nebbiolo the more it looked like this one may have some life left in it, even though Barolo tends to be thought of more as Nebbiolo’s long-lived incarnation.
So onto the occasion, and what better then the evening before my 41st birthday? I was visiting my parents for the weekend and my mother is known to enjoy a glass or two of red so I’d have someone to share with (my father and partner don’t usually drink red). There were a few raised eyebrows once they’d realised what the wine was, but there was no going back now, the time had come.
I carefully cut and removed the foil to reveal the top of the cork level with the bottle, no signs of leakage, so a good start.
The corkscrew went in easily and came out easily….too easily, the cork had broken on the way out, leaving the bottom 3rd still in the neck but unfortunately not enough to get the corkscrew back into, I pushed it into the bottle instead. 
Unperturbed I gently decanted the wine past the cork remnants until the bottle was empty - there was no sediment and as it poured I could see the rich dark, burnt toffee colour. Apart from a couple of small specks of cork the wine was clean and, more importantly, didn’t smell bad.
I quickly poured the first glass, if there was life left in this old Italian I wanted to make sure I tasted it at all stages. There was a definite age to the nose, my mother said it smelled of an old museum, but after a couple of minutes this mellowed and a toffee sweetness came through. In the mouth this was smooth and a little acidic, with a hint of oxidation at the front, but not too much, the mid-palate has some mustiness (the museum again) with some dryness on the finish. The next glass was about 10 minutes later, and it hadn’t changed too much with the toffee sweetness smell still coming through, maybe a little stronger. There were some features of aged sherry at the beginning, a little Oloroso nuttiness, and I could detect tannins on the top of the palate, the finish was a bit longer this time. This was a light-medium bodied wine with good acidity. 
After 30 minutes another glass delivered a hit of mushrooms, the sort of smell you get when you pour hot water on dried Porcinis. It was still a bit funky, a bit sweet and showed delicate legs down the side of the glass when swirled. The taste was still the same, with a touch of stewed tea for good measure, in the mouth this was a wine of textures rather than true flavour (most of which, to be honest, had probably gone 10 to 20 years ago). It seemed to be getting drier in the mouth with time, and those rehydrated Porcini mushrooms kept coming round again.
We decided to see how it went with food, cheese to be precise. A selection of white Stilton with apricot, Wensleydale, Edam and a creamy goat’s cheese was brought out and tried with a sip or two. The Goat’s cheese was the out and out winner, its salty sharpness seemed to complement and enhance the wine perfectly, turning it sweet and delicate and removing the musty acid/tannin combination. While the Edam was neutral, the white Stilton and Wensleydale went the other way, making the drink bitter. 
1 hour on and I get some cigar ash on the nose and oak, like an old wooden beam, slightly toasted and darkened with age. At the end of this glass I notice the sweetness back again and suddenly it hits me – dark Muscovado sugar! We get a jar of the stuff out of the cupboard and compare, and it’s a perfect match. This similarity was the residual smell of the just emptied glass, freshly poured it was hidden by the mushroom and musty wood.
As the end of the evening drew near I had one final glass and was surprised at how little this wine had changed since opening. The nose was still the star, a heady mix of complex aromas which I’ve never experienced before in one glass. In the mouth the slightly sweet, slightly sour, slightly acid bitterness and the tea tannin finish was unremarkable except for the fact that it was not unpleasant, a dry delicate and relatively light wine, but heavy in years. I hope that I’ll be able to try more aged wines in the future and was not disappointed by this introduction.
Greybeard
