The Corton Bressandes 1971, Prince de Merode, was properly stored
since release, had a high fill, and had no cork or other issues.

First a little background about 1971 is in order. This is the most
variable vintage I can remember that produced some excellent wines and
many poor ones. As usual those who usually made poor wine mostly made
poor to very poor wine in 1971. For famous producers, the quality was
all over the map. There was much localized hail in 1971. Some with
hail damage carefully picked and discarded hail-damaged grapes. With
careful sorting of grapes, some made excellent wines. However there
were many poor wines with a taint of rot, and some of these turned
brown up to 30 years ago. The better wines tended to be high in acid,
and were nearly pink when young. Many of these were not very user
friendly when young and have required extended aging to become smooth.

Although Merode was not the most famous name in Corton in the 1970s,
this 1971 is still quite decent. The color is rather light with some
age showing. The bouquet is quite intense, and is mainly of red fruit
and perhaps some beet root. The finish is fairly long. I did not
detect any hint of rot or other undesirable traits. Perhaps Merode's
portion of Bressandes received little hail damage, or very careful
removal of hail damaged grapes allowed production of clean wine. In
the best of years, Corton can be rather harsh for several years. This
wine was, perhaps being more harsh than usual when young.