Because I no longer have good facilities to store wines for aging, these
days I pretty much buy wine only for current drinking. But I keep finding
older bottles that I had forgotten I had. In the last couple of days, I
opened three of them.

Last night, with grilled pork chops, we had the 1979 Pichon Lalande. Most of
the fruit was faded, but at least it wasn't oxidized. A pale reminder of
what it once was, but at least it was still drinkable.

Not so with the 1969 Vallana Spanna I opened tonight with grilled steak. The
bottle was heavily ullaged, with the level not quite reaching the neck. On
opening, it was brown and maderized, tasting like sherry.

I poured it down the drain and opened the 1978 Duckhorn Three Palms Merlot.
Some seepage showing on the capsule frightened me, but the wine was in
surprisingly good shape. Lots of fruit and complexity left, with perhaps
just a touch of oxidation. Clearly the best of the three.

I didn't succeed on extracting the cork from any of these. With each,
attempts to pull it resulted in pushing it down the bottle, so I pushed it
all the way in, then decanted it through a tea strainer.

None of these has been stored in the best of conditions over the last
several years, so I was pleased to find two out of three still drinkable.

--
Ken Blake
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