12 bottles per lot
Details
Château Mouton-Rothschild--Vintage 1990
Pauillac, 1er cru classé
The label: Oil on canvas by Francis Bacon
The artist: Born in Dublin, the English artist Francis Bacon (1909-1992) painted his first canvases at the end of the Twenties, but as a self-taught painter he claimed he only found his style in 1945 with his "Three Studies of Figures at the Foot of a Crucifixion". Acclaim came much later, and it was not until the Eighties that Bacon was to be recognised as one of the great painters of the century. He continued to reject all official honours and remained in his private life obstinately bohemian. His painting is impossible to pigeon-hole in any school: it celebrates naked flesh, virility, the male figure captured in a scathing isolation, racked by mysterious birth-pangs, twisted by an undefined agony, by some vague desperation. "I have never", he once said, "been able to paint a smile". Set against flat-painted backgrounds, often in very vivid colours, bodies stretch and contract as if in a distorting mirror, imprisoned in a network of geometric lines obeying no recognisable perspective. They exist in an enclosed limbo that evokes both classical tragedy and the suffering of daily life.
As a man who loved wine, Bacon created a weird, formal dance about a wine-glass for the Mouton Rothschild 1990 label, distorting it to the curve of the bottle.
Tasting note:
At first, in cask, I preferred the luscher? '89, but within a couple of years it displayed an almost explosive, rich, spicy, nose. Aged ten, the spiciness seemed to owe much to new oak and, despite its richness, a touch of leanness. In June 2003, sweet, almost chewy, very drinkable but a bit 'edgy' and very tannic. Most recently, an impriale: deep, maturing more quickly than the '89' rich, complete, harmonious bouquet; sweet, soft, fleshy, spicy, with a dry finish. Very good, very enjoyable, but not great. Last tasted July 2005 ***(*) 2008 - 2016. MB
12 bottles per lot
Pauillac, 1er cru classé
The label: Oil on canvas by Francis Bacon
The artist: Born in Dublin, the English artist Francis Bacon (1909-1992) painted his first canvases at the end of the Twenties, but as a self-taught painter he claimed he only found his style in 1945 with his "Three Studies of Figures at the Foot of a Crucifixion". Acclaim came much later, and it was not until the Eighties that Bacon was to be recognised as one of the great painters of the century. He continued to reject all official honours and remained in his private life obstinately bohemian. His painting is impossible to pigeon-hole in any school: it celebrates naked flesh, virility, the male figure captured in a scathing isolation, racked by mysterious birth-pangs, twisted by an undefined agony, by some vague desperation. "I have never", he once said, "been able to paint a smile". Set against flat-painted backgrounds, often in very vivid colours, bodies stretch and contract as if in a distorting mirror, imprisoned in a network of geometric lines obeying no recognisable perspective. They exist in an enclosed limbo that evokes both classical tragedy and the suffering of daily life.
As a man who loved wine, Bacon created a weird, formal dance about a wine-glass for the Mouton Rothschild 1990 label, distorting it to the curve of the bottle.
Tasting note:
At first, in cask, I preferred the luscher? '89, but within a couple of years it displayed an almost explosive, rich, spicy, nose. Aged ten, the spiciness seemed to owe much to new oak and, despite its richness, a touch of leanness. In June 2003, sweet, almost chewy, very drinkable but a bit 'edgy' and very tannic. Most recently, an impriale: deep, maturing more quickly than the '89' rich, complete, harmonious bouquet; sweet, soft, fleshy, spicy, with a dry finish. Very good, very enjoyable, but not great. Last tasted July 2005 ***(*) 2008 - 2016. MB
12 bottles per lot