Tasted at Steve Rigicish's Bordeaux Party, 4/24/04

Wow, what a treat to be able to taste a wine from my birth year for the first time! I think Steve summed this up perfectly, when he described it “wow, it’s wine”, I mean – that’s exactly what it was. The color was surprising for a wine of 41 years old from a sub-par vintage (it had some!). Significant bricking, with a light red robe that is clear, and about the shade of a dark rose. Then nose immediately reveals the wine’s age, with aromas of cigar box, earth, clove and tobacco. Tannins are completely gone, and the wine offers a lush mouthful of, well, wine! Not surprisingly the finish is short, 90 points!

I'd like to correct something here, 1962 was NOT a subpar vintage, it just wasn't a great vintage like the one directly preceding it. It was quite probably the second best vintage of the 60's (only 1966 would come close) and possibly the third best vintage of the 50's and 60's (1959 being another stellar vintage). In Burgundy 1962 was a great vintage (much better than 1961). I have had the Lafite and it was pretty good from what I recall.

We can debate nuances but other than '61, there wasn't a great year for Bordeaux in the 60's, imho. From the 50's, the 55's and 59's remain 2 of my favorite vintages.

'62, '64 and '66 all suffer from lean fruit and an excess of acidity. I'm glad you enjoyed the '62 Lafite, I advise drink up to all who own it.

MTP

I disagree. 1962 was a great vintage, not too far below 1961 in quality. Anyone who claims the wines were lean didn't taste the wines I tasted, or at least taste them WHEN I tasted them. I preferred a number of the 192s to their 1961 versions, tasting them side-by-side during a number of similarly-themed dinners.

I stand corrected

I looked up some old vintage charts I had in the basement from the NY Times, Terry Robards, etc. The three I found gave their top rating of 20 to 1961. Two of the three rated 1962 an 18, while the third rated it 17.

From Robert Parker's "Bordeaux:"

"Coming after the great vintage of 1961, it could be expected that 1962 would be underrated, but this vintage would appear to be the most undervalued Bordeaux vintage of the last three decades. Elegant, supple, very fruity wines, the 1962s were neither too tannic nor too big, but consistently pleasureable and charming. Because of their balance, they have kept longer than anyone ever imagine..."

He goes on to say they should be drunk up soon, and that was written years ago. That the wines may not be great now should not tarnish the reputation they deservedly earned in their prime. That the wine Eric recently tasted was not a great wine does not mean that it never was. By the way, I had the 1962 Lafite several times, and it was truly a great wine in the 1980s. The only 1962s I enjoyed more were the Mouton and the Gruaud-Larose, with the latter being the greatest wine of 1962, imo, and the greatest Gruaud-Larose I've ever had. It's no snap judgement for me. I had the 1962 Gruaud-Larose about 30 times, 13 of those times from magnums.

I'm relying on my notes from the late 70's into the mid 90's. I did not have the opportunity or pleasure to drink these wines young except for a bottle here and there. When I did get to them, they were mostly tired. I only had the '62 Gruaud LaRose once, in 1979 and it was a good drink.

Tasted at the Left Bank Bordeaux tasting at the home of FreeTheGrapes 1/19/2005.

This wine was not decanted at all, just opened and poured. A very mushy cork, most of it came out on the first time, but a small amount broke off. That piece was removed with a second attempt, and no noticeable cork ended up in the bottle. It is available on wine searcher as low as $100.

Cedar and cigar were all I detected on the nose. Very light in the body, there was very little fruit left in the wine. As once can imagine, provenance would be very important in a bottle of this age. While it did not seem damaged in any way, there was little to recommend this particular bottle, other than some intellectual curiosity. Not rated.

Mike

Sorry to hear that, Mike. The 1962 Lafite was a truly great wine 15-20 years ago. We did a series of vertical dinners comparing the 1962 and 1955 vintages and the Lafite was clearly in the top three wines of the vintage in our opinions, trailing only the great Gruaud-Larose and Mouton. I had it at least two other times, one of them in another series of vertical dinners, with the 1971 and 1955. It was consistently great.