My wife was rummaging through our wine stocks the other day and found a wooden box with a sliding lid sitting on its side. The box had been lying there in the dark for many years and we had completely forgotten about it. Imagine our surprise when we discovered two wines when we slid the lid off. The first was a bottle of 2000 Château Carbonnieux Grand Cru red from Pessac-Leognan produced by the Famille Perrin. The second was a bottle of Château Ducru Beaucaillou 2001 2ème Cru Classé Saint Julien. The latter is one of my favourite Bordeaux wines which at the moment fetches over £100 a bottle.
My wife and I are very lucky; we can remember which member of the family bought the wines for us, many moons ago, but we cannot remember when. Luckily the wines were stored on their side.
We decided to drink the 2000 Château Carbonnieux with some friends who were visiting for Australia. After we had decanted the wine and let it rest for a while, we drank it with duck accompanied by a rich orange sauce. The wine was just past its best, but it was a superb example of the Pessac-Leognan apellation. The wine was concentrated and complex and was long on the palate. It was warming to drink and was still full of black currant, tobacco box and plum flavours. The tannin had softened. The wine went perfectly with the duck and its rich sauce.
Our friends were impressed and so was I. It pays to keep your Bordeaux hidden away, as long it is lain flat in the dark.
Jancis Robinson describes the wine exactly on the following web site and I couldn't agree more.
https://www.millesima.co.uk/chateau-carbonnieux-2000.html.
You can still buy 2000 Château Carbonnieux for around £40 pounds a bottle but hurry up and drink it immediately.
I can't wait to open my second hidden bottle but I should wait a little longer for the right occasion. The Château Ducru Beaucaillou is most certainly a top wine; its world class. It's better to be born lucky rather than rich.
No comments:
Post a Comment