TN: Chateau Canon

K

Ken Schramm

Ken Schramm
Chateau Canon 1990, Saint Emilion, 13%/vol

This wine gets knocked elsewhere for being light, but that was fine with me. Color is deep but ruby and not purple. Low-volume level nose of black fruits, some vanilla, cigar box opens after a couple of hours. On the palate, acidity is vibrant, same black fruits, the beginnings of classic aged Bordeaux character, some oak, but not oppressive. Finishes tart. With tenderloin, potatoes and roast cauliflower. Satisfying. Maybe another 3-5 years in it if stored as well as this bottle was, but this was my only bottle, and no regrets.
 
So odd to think of Canon as being potentially OTH at age 25.

I haven't had the '90, and I find it totally possible to believe, but much older vintages of this are going very strong.
 
Good catch. With all the defense of brdx in the 80s and early 90s I am likely to put up, I wish there were more wines made in this style.
 
Canon was very strong through most of the 1980s, but then it hit a bad patch with vine fungus problems and reportedly also from chemicals used to treat roof timbers that tainted the wines. Eventually the property was sold in 1996. Without checking my notes, I don't recall whether 1990 was before the problems arose.

Being on the Cte with limestone soils and having a high proportion of Cabernet Franc, it's going to appear relatively lighter than many other Right Bank wines (even if one goes back before the current fashions there). For many, myself included, Canon belonged, along with fellow Cte wines Magdelaine, Belair, and (before the change in regime) Ausone, among a group of very special Right Bank wines.
 
If anyone happens to have followed 1970 Canon throughout 1990s or earlier, then you are aware of an extreme example of what Claude is talking about. It took ages for its apparent thinness to work itself out, with fairly spectacular results.
 
originally posted by Claude Kolm:
For many, myself included, Canon belonged, along with fellow Côte wines Magdelaine, Belair, and (before the change in regime) Ausone, among a group of very special Right Bank wines.
Click to expand...
Count me in.

Hate that past tense.
 
Ausone is gone, and I haven't tasted young vintages of the others since 2001, but I have confidence in Moueix for Magdelaine and Belair (although I suppose there is a generation change going/gone on) and the new team at Canon seemed to be doing a pretty good job, too, although there was some modernization of texture to the wine on my 2001 visit.
 
I tried the 2005 Canon after John Gilman's ecstatic review, it was definitely ripe and fruity (2005 after all) and couldn't be confused with something defiantly old-school, but not in the modern caricature style either.
 
Jim had a better take on the lasting power of this wine that I did. Back to finish it on day three, and it is unchanged - no degradation at all. That said, I think at this point we're talking endurance and not maturation.

I remember that about the timbers, but I didn't get anything off, and my timbers could use some preservation.
 
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