Went out for our anniversary last night to celebrate many years of delirious
bliss (come to think of it, the delirium may have set in about the time I
became interested in wine.....)

Went to a local restaurant to get my maintenance dosage of foie gras (I'm in
training for the Foie Fools part deux in a couple of weeks and need to keep up
my levels of vitamin F).

After a glass of pleasant but forgettable white we settled down to the main
event:

1978 Ch. Batailley - this has always been a pleasant little wine, and we have
sort of made it an anniversary tradition, as we started drinking it on that
occasion almost 20 years ago. Our last bottle, it showed quite nicely in the
nose, which had cedar and ample fruit to be very pleasant. In the mouth, I felt
the wine was a bit dry and showing obvious signs of age, but maybe 10 minutes
later it magically opened up and all of a sudden there was pretty decent fruit
there. Awhile later, it had relapsed into mediocrity, but for the brief time
we were drinking most of it, it was elegant and enjoyable.

1970 Ch. Ducru Beaucaillou - I have always had good luck with this wine. When
I did a 1970 horizontal tasting, it showed better than any of the other St.
Juliens, and when we opened it from magnum against a 1961 Ducru and a 1971 DRC
Grands Echezeaux (also from magnum) it was beaten out only narrowly by the DRC.
This time around the wine was probably as good as I've ever seen it. The
bouquet was just a treat, with cedar, vanilla, and dark fruit. In the mouth it
never put a foot wrong - great concentration of fruit, wonderful depthj of
flavour and complex with many nuances on palate. Very good sweet finish, with
the intensity of flavour persisting right through to the end. This isn't my
absolute favourite 1970 (the Montrose and Latour take precedence), but it is
certainly in the top half dozen. If you have them, I would drink them - it
won't get any better and it would be a shame to allow prolonged cellaring to
detract even one iota from this lovely wine.

Thanks for the tasting notes for Ducru-Beaucaillou 1970. I still have 5
bottles, and at last tasting the wine appeared to be at the peak. I am
guessing that it will hold several more years, but it would be a shame
to wait too long. I probably will drink a bottle a year until it is
gone, perhaps keeping the last bottle longer if decline has not started.
In 1970, Ducru is better than some of the first growths. Of course I
wish that I had bought more 70 Latour rather than some of the other
first growths. However, on release, there was not much to suggest that
the 70 Latour was going to be far superior to some of the other first
growths and super seconds. There were not nearly as many wine writers
then that tasted the new releases and rated them. Many people still
bought wine using a vintage chart and the classification of the wine as
a guide. It takes years of experience to taste a tannic, dumb young
Latour or Mouton and predict how long it will improve and how good it
will be, and even the experts sometimes miss.

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>In 1970, Ducru is better than some of the first growths.

Indeed the Latour is at the top of the ladder for me, the Lafite and
underachiever that year, the Mouton was OK but not outstanding (I'll be tasting
it again next month, so we'll see), the Margaux pathetic, the Haut Brion better
than Parker gave it credit for, but not first class.

If I was offered the choice of wines from that vintage, I'd choose (other than
Petrus, which I'd probably sell to load up on the others) Latour, Montrose,
Ducru, Trotanoy, and if it was cellared properly, the lovely Palmer.