Beychevelle Vertical (and apparently a discussion on the meaning of salad days)

L

Loren Sonkin

Loren Sonkin
Last night my tasting group met to taste Beychevelle. There were eight of us who put together a pretty diverse vertical covering forty years. The wines were quite interesting if not profound. As a group, I think it gave us a nice view of how the house style has changed over the years pretty much in line with how Bordeaux has changed during that time. The wines were consumed over three hours. Breads and cheeses were served. All wines popped and poured

1986 Beychevelle
Ruby with slight purple hues. The nose is nice with tobacco and cherries. Full bodied. On the palate, bitter cherries at first. With air it shows cherries with a slight menthol quality. Young still with a good amount of tannins. Kept improving all night long.

2005 Beychevelle
Purple in color, ruby at the rim. Shimmering bright. The nose is very tight. A bit of tobacco. Some cherries. Then it shut down completely. On the palate, black cherries. Lots of tannins. Some heat on the finish. This is a very good wine, but should not be opened for 8 years at this point.

1966 Beychevelle
Fill was mid high shoulder I am told. Brown/purple in color. Cloudy and opaque. The nose is not good. Some earthiness and complexity. But some off chemical notes and slightly prune tones. On the palate, this is drinkable. Mature. A bit too acidic. No finish. Most likely not a proper bottle.

1967 Beychevelle
The group was about evenly split between the 67 and 66 for worst wine. Ruby/brown/purple in color. Cloudy and opaque. Fill was mid shoulder I am told. Slightly better than the 66 but if only because it was less of everything.

1989 Beychevelle
Purple/ruby in color. At first this is tart and thin but with air it kept rounding out and getting fuller. Cedar and cherries on the nose. Slightly sweet cassis and raspberry Jell-o on the palate. Mild tannins. Improved all night long.

1982 Beychevelle
Purple/ruby in color, mostly opaque and bright. The nose is tight at first but with air opens up. Complex with tobacco and cassis. Some forest floor. Full bodied. Mature and complex. The wine in the best spot of its life cycle. Layered cassis and leather and minerals. Nice finish.

1995 Beychevelle
Purple in color with ruby swirls. Mostly opaque but flat. The nose is tight but with air it has a slight funk with earthy notes and cassis. Complex on the palate with kirsch and black raspberries. Tannic. Needs some time to resolve the tannins and unwind but a beautiful wine. My friend Dale got the first pour and it had off smoky notes. I go the last pour as we passed the bottles around and none of those notes were present. A reason to decant or at least open an hour before even for relatively younger bottles.

2000 Beychevelle
Inky purple in color, shimmering bright. The nose has tobacco, cassis, ashtray and a slightly musty note. Very nice. On the palate, cassis and sweet black raspberries. Tannic and tight, this kept opening. Still needs plenty of time, but if you have a bunch no harm in checking in now. Mine and the groups WOTN.
 
Back in my salad days* I traveled to a far-distant wine shop to purchase several prized bottles to add to my ever-growing wine collection (I was cellaring approximately 40 bottles at that time, ensconced in an interior closet and wrapped individually in newspaper to even out any temperature changes). I had recently been given a book on the classified chateaux of Bordeaux so was keen on adding some to my wine portfolio (I was more wine-pretentious then than I am now).

Given the amount of money I had to work with, my selections were limited. First Growths were out, but I was severely tempted to abandon my Bordeaux quest in favor of a new California winery the clerk was touting. I could get a bottle each of something called "Red Rock Terrace" and "Volcanic Hill" from the 1974 vintage from a winery called Diamond Creek. Or, I could opt for a bottle of 1964 Lynch-Bages and a bottle of 1970 Beychevelle for about the same money. Well, those wines were in the book, and I'd never heard of Diamond Creek before and there's no way I'd be made a fool of by some fancy-pants wine salesman, so I went French. I was out the door for under $25 for both bottles, right about the same amount that the Diamond Creek wines would have cost.

I treasured these bottles for years, and when a suitable occasion occurred the Beychevelle was opened with great aplomb. It was corked. The Lynch-Bages wound up as part of a four-way trade that would have impressed the GM of a major-league baseball team. A bunch of bottles were traded to someone who then traded his flame thrower for some "pharmaceutical products for resale", the owner of which gave up a saxophone that was needed by a bandmate whose instrument had been forceably removed when his car was broken into. I can't help but think that the sax (a Selmer Mark VI Tenor) was a better use of the wine than drinking it ever would have been.

-Eden (takeaway lesson from all of this: I should have bought six bottles of Chateauf-du-Pape in the first place for my $25)

*I'm not really sure what "salad days" means but it sounds particularly ruminative so I bandy it about occasionally so as to make me seem deeper than I really am.
 
I always thought "salad days" was a reference to when one was still green, i.e., young. Or perhaps it indicates a time when one still dressed for dinner.

I have fond memories of the 1986 Beychevelle from a number of years ago, glad to hear it's still kicking.
 
originally posted by Jay Miller:

I always thought "salad days" was a reference to when one was still green, i.e., young. Or perhaps it indicates a time when one still dressed for dinner..
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I thought it meant that you were buying a diverse range of things. A bit of this, a bit of that. Like a salade compose.
 
originally posted by Eden Mylunsch:
Selmer Mark VI Tenor
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Nice trade. What sort of horn do you think you could have gotten for the Diamond Creek?

I see that Prof. Loesberg has covered the "salad days" question. Damn, one that I knew for a change...
 
originally posted by Steve Guattery:
originally posted by Eden Mylunsch:
Selmer Mark VI Tenor
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Nice trade. What sort of horn do you think you could have gotten for the Diamond Creek?
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Maybe one of these but probably this instead .

-Eden (I think that's a picture of Joe Dressner during hissalad days in the latter link)
 
originally posted by Kay Bixler:
Salad Days is also a great song by Young Marble Giants. If anybody remembers them . . .

Best,
Kay
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I was thinking of the Minor Threat song (don't know if anyone else had a punk phase).
 
originally posted by Loren Sonkin:
As a group, I think it gave us a nice view of how the house style has changed over the years pretty much in line with how Bordeaux has changed during that time.
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I have liked this property because it hasn't seemed so spoofy as most others. I even liked such recent, great years as 2001 and 2004! A recent 1983 and 1986 were stunning wines IMO.
 
originally posted by lars makie:
originally posted by Kay Bixler:
Salad Days is also a great song by Young Marble Giants. If anybody remembers them . . .

Best,
Kay
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I was thinking of the Minor Threat song (don't know if anyone else had a punk phase).
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I offer the contrary, did anyone else not have a punk phase?
 
originally posted by Thor:
I had a Camel phase. Does that count?
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Only if they sang (or had flute parts) about the salad days. I had to look up Camel, I take it you mean the brit prog rock band and not actually riding camels.
 
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