A few weeks ago I had the
rare opportunity to open, decant and taste an iconic French wine from the Chateauneuf-du-Pape
region in France. My brother received a gift of a 1990 Chateau de Beaucastel
Chateaneuf-du-Pape wine. He wanted everyone in the family to experience a wine
that had been stored for over 26 years. This is a wine that should be enjoyed
and savoured for its complexity. It’s a complicated mix of grapes like Mourvedre,
Grenache, Syrah, Counoise, Cinsault, Vaccarese, Terret Noir, Muscardin, Picpoul,
Picardan, Bourboulenc, and Roussanne. All of these grapes combined yield a wine
that is both intense and a mosaic of flavours. It’s as complicated as the papal
history of Chateauneuf-de-Pape.
If
we go back to 1990 when the wine was bottled, Margret Thatcher was the Prime
Minister of the UK, Nelson Mandela was released from prison and the U.S.
invaded Panama. So a lot has happened in the world since this wine was originally corked. It’s almost a piece of history or a marker in time. Since this bottle
had been sitting for a quarter century (hopefully stored correctly) it needed
to be decanted properly as there would be substantial sediment in the wine
which you definitely don’t want to drink.
This is where the story goes slightly off
the rails. Somewhere during the day my brother had sent a text message asking
me to bring a decanting set so that we could properly decant the wine. Well,
needless to say I failed to notice that I had a text message so when I showed
up at the door he asked “Did you bring it?” to which I answered with a puzzle
look on my face “Bring what?” “Did you get my text message?” to which I
answered while reaching for my cell phone, “What text message?” Rather than
drive for 45 minutes back to my house we decided to “MacGyver” a decanting set
which consisted of an empty clean wine bottle, a funnel, a strainer, an
unbleached coffee filter and a steady hand. The first hurdle was to get the
cork out without breaking it into a million pieces. Slowly we inserted the
corkscrew and then tried pulling it out like two surgeons removing an engorged
gall bladder. Unfortunately, the cork broke half way out and I was forced to go
back in several times with the corkscrew. After some grunting and many curse
words, it finally came out with a bit of tartaric crystal deposit on the bottom
of the cork (see cork picture).
We then assembled the improvised decanting set and
started carefully pouring the wine like it was nitroglycerin. There was some minor
spillage which was followed by more blasphemy but we managed to decant most of the
wine. The bottle had substantial sediment in the bottom (see picture) which
didn’t end up in the decanted bottle. A job somewhat well done so we let the wine sit for an
hour to breathe before tasting it.
Needless to say it was well worth the wait. After a quarter century the
wine had changed from a dark red to a garnet colour with a well defined water
line around the edge of the glass. The aroma was distinct and earthy in nature
but no sign of spoilage. After taking the first sip we stared at each other for
a few seconds with mouths full of 26 year old blended wine expecting someone’s
face to go sour but we were pleasantly surprised that the Chateauneuf-du-Pape
had a mid to long finish of sour cherry and an almost raisin flavour. As I sat at
the dinner table looking at the iconic wine swirl in my glass and savouring the
last drops I reflected back on the events of 1990. The music group Milli
Vanilli had an almost cult following on the pop charts. Hmmm.. I guess some
things age better than others.
If you would like to buy your own piece of
history and age it for a quarter century, you can purchase a 2014 Chateau de
Beaucastel Chateauneuf-du-Pape at the LCBO for $89.95 (711317)
1990
Chateau de Beaucastel – Chateauneuf-du-Pape, France
