Was pulling the bottle out to stand up for a week before opening at a dinner next Friday. For some reason I decided to cut the capsule off to see what the cork looked like from the top. After removing the capsule I could see that the cork was soaked all the way through. I decided to just clean residue that the capsule had left behind and stick it in the wine fridge standing up. While cleaning the top I accidently put some pressure on the cork, and it sank down about a half inch. At this point I decided not to take the chance of waiting over a week and popped it.

The cork came out in one piece and was soaked all the way through. I decanted it off the sediment the best that I could, and poured my girlfriend and myself a glass. The color was a little cloudy due to not being able to let the sediment sit, with rust orange towards the outside.

The nose was still there to my amazement with cedar and ripe fruits. With more fruit in the mouth(though a little tired), I was excited because I was not expecting much. There were no tannin to speak of by this point and it was drinking very well. Unfortunately by the time we made it to glass 2-3 the wine was fading.

All in all not the way I had imagined drinking it, but what a thrill to find it still tasting good(at least for the first 20-30 min.). This is the oldest bordeaux I have tasted(next to a 1961 Lynch Bages), and I look forward with anticipation to trying the 1929 Cheval that my friend bought at the same auction.

aloha, a good number of the '59 Bordeaux, given proper provenance, and drinking very well now, and a few, most notable the Mouton and Latour, may still be improving. I have one bottle of each and have had each two times already. I never had the opportunity to taste the Pichon-Lalande. Thanks for the notes.

Board-o,

I have a couple of 1959 Ch. Pape Clement for which the only tasting notes I could find were 80 pts (WS back in 1990). Any experience with this wine?

I'm sure I'll drink them soon in any event, but would like to know what I might expect.

Bad news, babsy. Broadbent's comments from a1972 tasting: "** (out of a possible *****). Probably at its peak now."

I've never been a fan of pape Clement. In fact, I've never had one worthy of purchase, although I have bought some in the past. The only 1959 Graves I've had was the Haut Brion, and it was great.

Opened one yesterday at dinner. Fill was excellent and cork came out looking great. Color was very nice with only modest bricking. Fruit is on the downslide but was still a pleasure. Reminded me of one of my labradors....old and a little tired. Do not hold one for a 50th birthday birth year wine!

Wow, how lucky to have a wine that like to drink. Too bad it appears to be heading south so quickly now.

MM, was that the bottle you got from Premier a couple months ago?

Yes it was! Thanks for the tip. Provenance: They claim it came from a large cellar in Europe and every older bottle they had already opened was in great shape. Now I need a '59 first growth in a magnum for my 50th.

Good deal.