Spurred by John Taverner's note today, and by the happy coincidence of
our celebrating our 18th wedding anniversary today, we opened a bottle
of the '82 Gruaud-Larose with a dinner of broiled rack of lamb with
fingerling potatoes. As I mentioned in John's thread, the provenance of
this bottle was as iffy as it gets in our household: Jean had given it
to me for my 27th birthday in 1986, and it had sat in my apartment on
Manhattan for 2 years before traveling West to Berkeley in a rented
truck, sitting in our crawlspace in Berkeley for 18 months, before being
flown to Indiana, where it has slumbered since.

1982 Ch. Gruaud-Larose
color: ruby red with a light hint of brick at the edges
nose: initially, the "Cordier funk", later giving way to pencil lead,
berry fruit, and herbs
palate: medium body, meaty, herbal, minerals, pencil lead, solid core of
fruit, good balanced acidity and a rich finish

As John T. mentioned, the tannins in this wine are gone: it is as smooth
and supple as one could hope. Also noteworthy, though, in this era of
blockbuster claret, is the incredible sense of balance that this wine
displays: it is big but graceful. It went splendidly with the simple
lamb preparation and didn't change noticeably over the course of a 1 1/2
hour dinner. IMO, no hurry to drink this up, but I also don't see it
getting any better. OTOH, if your G-L has been stored at a constant 50
F/10 C since purchase, YMMV.

Mark Lipton
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