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I have used this glass in this Video: RIEDEL Veritas Champagne.
I have tasted the following wine in this Video:
? Chateau Mouton Bordeaux (Amtmann bottling)
? Chateau Latour Bordeaux (Amtmann bottling)
? Chateau Lafite Bordeaux (Amtmann bottling)
The 100 Point Scoring System (from www.robertparker.com):
96-100: An extraordinary wine of profound and complex character displaying all the attributes expected of a classic wine of its variety. Wines of this caliber are worth a special effort to find, purchase and consume.
90 - 95: An outstanding wine of exceptional complexity and character. In short, these are terrific wines.
80 - 89: A barely above average to very good wine displaying various degrees of finesse and flavor as well as character with no noticeable flaws.
70 - 79: An average wine with little distinction except that it is a soundly made. In essence, a straightforward, innocuous wine.
60 - 69: A below average wine containing noticeable deficiencies, such as excessive acidity and/or tannin, an absence of flavor or possibly dirty aromas or flavors.
50 - 59: A wine deemed to be unacceptable.
A few weeks ago a subscriber contacted me and told me about these bottles that he has in his cellar. A lot of people are sending me photos of old wines they found but this story sounded very interesting. He had bought many wines at an old, royal estate. The house was in the family for centuries and they had a lot of old bottles in the cellar. He had tasted them with friends and thought they were still good. Sietse, a Dutchman, showed me some pictures and offered to send me some of these wines.
What really piqued my interest is seeing the references on the label - Mouton, Lafite and Latour are clearly visible. There are five wineries in Bordeaux that carry the classification as Premiers Grands Crus Classés and they represent the pinnacle of wine from this very famous region.
Mouton only became a Premiers Grands Crus Classés in 1973 to be precise. The most recent vintages cost hundreds of Euros even before the wine has been bottled and old vintages cost thousands of Euros per bottle.
100 years ago prices were quite a bit lower but as demand increased significantly for great Bordeaux, the wines have become less and less affordable. One reason, why they have become legendary is because they can age very well. I have tasted wines that were many decades old, that were still wonderful. But can they survive 100 years?
The labels are in terrible condition so there is no way for me to say how old the wine is and clearly identify the wine as such - even if Sietse has selected some bottles that looked better. What I have gathered from the labels and Sietse's research is, however, that they are merchant bottling from a time when they were still done by the first growth. You know, the times when Bordeaux Chateaux were selling their wines in barrels to be bottled at a wine merchant in England, France or Belgium. Mouton Rothschild stopped doing Merchant bottlings in 1924 and then the other Premiers Grands Crus Classés followed suit. The thing is though that this IS a Mouton Merchant bottling suggesting that is from before the 1930s. On top of that, it is from a Merchant, that stopped working in the 1920s apparently. The wines were bottled by Amtmann, who was - according to Sietse a Negociant based in Bordeaux. I found little information on this Negociant but according to the data, I found Negociant Jean Mathieu Charles Amtmann lived in Bordeaux in the 19th century. This further suggests, that the wine might be 100 years old or older.
The whole story clearly has as many holes as the labels of those bottles, but to me, it kinda checks out.
The levels are pretty low which is never a good sign, but it is also pretty typical for old wines and it does not mean that the wine has gone bad. The glass of the bottle, the capsules, and the label all look very old. You can see that the bottle is not a perfect industrially produced one and the label. I have never seen a label in such a sorry state. They have turned from paper into - chalk it seems - and it looks like they also experimented with underwater aging at that Dutch estate. The label looks like the bottle was stored under very humid conditions which hopefully is an advantage.