On Oct 31, 2:08*pm, Mark Lipton > wrote:
> On 10/31/12 11:16 AM, Bi!! wrote:
>
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> > I had dinner with a small group of friends last night and everybody
> > was asked to bring a bottle of unknown provenence from their cellars
> > to see what surprises lay in store. *All of these bottles were
> > purchased from auction houses such as Acker, HDH, WineCommune, etc.
> > All were purchased more than 5 years ago. *The reults were stunning.
>
> > 1990 Meo Camuzet Clos Vougeot-good cork and ullage was great. *The
> > wine was cloudy and quite brickish. *Tart cherry and slightly rotten
> > mushrooms on the nose. *Flavors were quite sharp and acidic with
> > underlying sweet red fruit but quite tannic and sour. *D
>
> > 2000 DRC Romanee St. Vivant-Cork showed signs of being cook twice as
> > the cork showed two distinct "rings" where the wine was forced up the
> > neck of the bottle into the cork. *Again, the wine was quite cloudy,
> > brick recd in color and a very pungent nose of burnt matchstick and
> > prune juice. *The wine was undrinkable.
>
> > 1996 Chateau Latour-Saturated cork. *WIne was dark purple with
> > brickish cast. *Very little nose even after 1.5 hours in a decanter.
> > Some cassis and lead pencil but overall it was unremarkable, tannic
> > and quite empty. C-
>
> > 1996 Chateau Ducru Beaucaillou-Good cork with some very slight
> > penetration. *The wine was quite dark with very little visable signs
> > of age except for a slight pinkish note at the rim. *Nose of
> > blackberries, cassis and a bit of espresso and cedar. *Well rounded on
> > the palate, soft resoved tannins, saturated with black fruits and
> > tobacco notes. *Years of life ahead. *A-
>
> > Not scientific by any stretch of the imagination but does make you
> > say...hmmmmmm. *Mine was the Ducru.
>
> Egads, Bill!
> * *I've been a customer of HDH auctions since they started up in 2004..
> During that time, I've won maybe 8-9 lots of wine and have yet to
> encounter a heat-damaged bottle (corked wines, OTOH, I have). * I have
> no firsthand experience with Acker but WineCommune has the rep for not
> vetting their lots nearly as well as a traditional auction house (HDH
> e.g. puts a very high emphasis on provenance and cellar conditions -- I
> doubt that I could get them to auction off any wines from my passively
> cooled, below-grade cellar).
>
> Sorry to hear about your experiences, but I'm glad for you that your
> bottle at least turned out to be fine. *Those other wines are enough to
> make a winegeek cry.
>
> Mark Lipton
>
> --
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>
> - Show quoted text -
I don't know which wines came from where Mark (mine came from Acker
Merrill) but I felt that the 2 burgs suffered from heat damage for
sure. No physical inspection of the capsule or bottles revealed
anything of note. I think the Latour was just poorly stored in
general. The label was in poor condition (dirty) the fill was a bit
low for it's age.