Château La Louvière Pessac-Leognan Graves Bordeaux 1994
I last tasted and wrote about this wine about eighteen months ago when I wrote, "There is still life left in this
nineteen year old. We still have half a dozen half bottles of this
original case we purchased upon release. The original wood cases of
375ml small format half bottles contained 24 bottles equaling the same
amount of wine as twelve regular 750ml bottles."
That OWC - Original Wood Case, shown left, was buried in a double stack of cases in the corner of the cellar. When I moved the stack to gain access to our well tank recently, which provides passive cooling in our subterranean cellar, I pulled out this case and realized, that while its a half case, its twelve bottles remaining, since a case of 375 half bottles actually contains twice as many bottles, (but the same amount of wine (as a standard case of 12 bottles of 750ml each, as noted above.))
So we still have ten or eleven bottles of this left, and based on tonight's tasting, its time to drink up! Still not bad since the smaller 375 ml format bottles tend to age less gracefully and not hold as long as standard or larger format bottles. Our Tasting Journal Index for this wine shows a half dozen tasting notes going back seven years. (I suspect I have earlier tasting notes not indexed. I'll look into this at some point.)
While I lauded that there was life left in the earlier bottle tasting note, tonight, the dark berry fruits are definitely giving way to non-fruit earth, leather, creosote and musty wood notes.
Dark ruby color with a brownish tinge starting to set in. Medium bodied, leathery and smoky creosote tones predominate over the black cherry and black berry fruits, accented by cedar and tangy and slightly tart cinnamon spice that gives way to a big full floral note that fills the mouth and lingers for minutes with the tongue coating moderate tannins.
This wine provides a good QPR - Quality Price Ratio with its pleasant early drinkability coupled with its longevity.
RM 86 points, (diminished from 89 at last tasting).
https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=38869
So we still have ten or eleven bottles of this left, and based on tonight's tasting, its time to drink up! Still not bad since the smaller 375 ml format bottles tend to age less gracefully and not hold as long as standard or larger format bottles. Our Tasting Journal Index for this wine shows a half dozen tasting notes going back seven years. (I suspect I have earlier tasting notes not indexed. I'll look into this at some point.)
While I lauded that there was life left in the earlier bottle tasting note, tonight, the dark berry fruits are definitely giving way to non-fruit earth, leather, creosote and musty wood notes. Dark ruby color with a brownish tinge starting to set in. Medium bodied, leathery and smoky creosote tones predominate over the black cherry and black berry fruits, accented by cedar and tangy and slightly tart cinnamon spice that gives way to a big full floral note that fills the mouth and lingers for minutes with the tongue coating moderate tannins.
This wine provides a good QPR - Quality Price Ratio with its pleasant early drinkability coupled with its longevity.
RM 86 points, (diminished from 89 at last tasting).
https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=38869
