Michael Fridjhon: September 2007
Author:
Michael Fridjhon
Published: 19 Oct 07
Wine critic and writer Michael Fridjhon recalls the more memorable wines he has drunk.The idea of a Bordeaux blend is a relatively new concept in the Old World:
in its present form it derives from the post-Phylloxera period at the end of
the 19th century. Outside France, the term "Bordeaux blend" is used
to describe combinations of Cabernet and Merlot - where the Cabernet is usually,
but not exclusively, Cabernet Sauvignon and where the presence of Petit Verdot
would not be a surprise. There are a few varieties which were traditionally
planted in Bordeaux before the vineyard devastation which followed the arrival
of Phylloxera vastatrix in the 1860s - and which remain legal in the red wines.
In many of the blends you can still find a splash of Malbec, though Carmenère
has all but vanished.
Curiously, the key component of the blend - the Cabernet Sauvignon - is itself a relative newcomer to the world of fine wine. It simply did not exist before the 17th century - which was when the Dutch drained the swamps to create the arable land that became the vineyards of the Medoc. This means that the oldest bottles of claret still occasionally tasted by those lucky or rich enough to risk R500 000 or more on the prospect of not being disappointed by a wine of great antiquity contain Cabernet Sauvignon from the infancy of the variety.
Very little red Bordeaux - no matter how well stored - is at its best after 150 years. The oldest bottle I've tasted - and this was a result of being in the right place at the right time - was an 1806 Lafite opened at the Chateau in the early 1990s. The bouquet was powerful, fresh and hauntingly aromatic, but the palate was already evanescent, a ghostly fluttering of old lace and then it was gone.
Many of the great vintages of the mid-20th century are still remarkably youthful, and the second half of the 1940s yielded a number of wines which gave my cellar - when I first started collecting - a splendid send-off. I began buying wine seriously in the early 1970s - when the late 1940s were as recent as the mid-1980s today. So it wasn't quite the same thing as pillaging Tutankhamen's tomb to open and enjoy what would today be regarded with the hallowed air of a vinous collectable.
In the mid-1980s, Sotheby's in South Africa took advantage of an amendment to the Liquor Act and began auctioning wines from private cellars. At one of the first of these sales there was a parcel of wine which included two 1949 Clarets - Chateaux Lafite-Rothschild and Pichon Baron. The wines had been lying in a garage for some time and the fill levels were not good - making them a gamble which might appeal to those with more disposable income than me. In fact, I had no intention of buying them. However, when they did not even attract a single offer, my bidding paddle acquired a life of its own. Besides - at under R20 per bottle for the Lafite, and half of that for the Pichon, the risk seemed less unattractive.
There were casualties in both boxes - with the cork of one of the Lafites dropping into the wine on the drive home. But the best bottles of each case alone justified the speculation. Probably I had half a dozen near-perfect examples: I can still remember the rich, almost tarry notes of the Pichon, and the ethereal spice - tea leaf, cedarwood and pimento - of the Lafite. It is tempting to think that their charm was added to by their relatively low purchase price - but that is to assume that there can be anything else on your mind but the wonderment of the vinous miracle when a great bottle is presented at its peak.
Curiously, the key component of the blend - the Cabernet Sauvignon - is itself a relative newcomer to the world of fine wine. It simply did not exist before the 17th century - which was when the Dutch drained the swamps to create the arable land that became the vineyards of the Medoc. This means that the oldest bottles of claret still occasionally tasted by those lucky or rich enough to risk R500 000 or more on the prospect of not being disappointed by a wine of great antiquity contain Cabernet Sauvignon from the infancy of the variety.
Very little red Bordeaux - no matter how well stored - is at its best after 150 years. The oldest bottle I've tasted - and this was a result of being in the right place at the right time - was an 1806 Lafite opened at the Chateau in the early 1990s. The bouquet was powerful, fresh and hauntingly aromatic, but the palate was already evanescent, a ghostly fluttering of old lace and then it was gone.
Many of the great vintages of the mid-20th century are still remarkably youthful, and the second half of the 1940s yielded a number of wines which gave my cellar - when I first started collecting - a splendid send-off. I began buying wine seriously in the early 1970s - when the late 1940s were as recent as the mid-1980s today. So it wasn't quite the same thing as pillaging Tutankhamen's tomb to open and enjoy what would today be regarded with the hallowed air of a vinous collectable.
In the mid-1980s, Sotheby's in South Africa took advantage of an amendment to the Liquor Act and began auctioning wines from private cellars. At one of the first of these sales there was a parcel of wine which included two 1949 Clarets - Chateaux Lafite-Rothschild and Pichon Baron. The wines had been lying in a garage for some time and the fill levels were not good - making them a gamble which might appeal to those with more disposable income than me. In fact, I had no intention of buying them. However, when they did not even attract a single offer, my bidding paddle acquired a life of its own. Besides - at under R20 per bottle for the Lafite, and half of that for the Pichon, the risk seemed less unattractive.
There were casualties in both boxes - with the cork of one of the Lafites dropping into the wine on the drive home. But the best bottles of each case alone justified the speculation. Probably I had half a dozen near-perfect examples: I can still remember the rich, almost tarry notes of the Pichon, and the ethereal spice - tea leaf, cedarwood and pimento - of the Lafite. It is tempting to think that their charm was added to by their relatively low purchase price - but that is to assume that there can be anything else on your mind but the wonderment of the vinous miracle when a great bottle is presented at its peak.
1949 is the year that the Springboks beat the All Blacks 4 - 0 - an achievement of such importance in the world of South African rugby that it is widely regarded as the football equivalent of the "the year of the comet"...
