1 imperial per lot
細節
Château Pape-Clément
You'll have to get up early if you want to follow Bernard Magrez. Now well into his 80s, he is a very fit man (and has a personal trainer), travels widely, noting everything down in his famous pocket book and is totally in charge of every aspect of his 42 vineyard estates, of which Pape Clément is the most important. He dresses impeccably, expects his staff to do the same and his incredible attention to detail mean that nothing is ever left to chance. He has totally turned around an estate that was previously rather hit-or-miss into a vineyard that performs regularly every year with modern fleshy and succulent wines which are always dependable, even if such a style is not totally to your taste.
I first got to know the wines through a cache of the '66 in magnum that I bought from a Delor special offer during the 1970s crash. They are probably too old now but at the time, they were a straight, true blue, very Cabernet wine with a menthol spicy flavour running through the quite hard tannins to remind you that they were from the Graves not the Médoc. They were a real class act. I still find that flavour amongst the fleshy, spicy ones of the much more modern, fatter and smoother wines of today, for which the quest for softness is spared no expense : grape-by-grape hand-denoduling, gravity filling into small wooden vats, a long cold soak at 8°C, whole berry fermentation with manual cap plunging and gravity filling into new barrels for the malolactic, then a full 18 month maturation in oak. Some think they are too oaky : for me, the rest of the wine is so powerful that I don't find it excessive.
The vintages in this sale are all but one from this modern period. The one that is not is the '85, showing all the tightness and finesse of that '66 so long ago. The '90 shows the beginning of Pape . Clément's smokeyness that later becomes intertwined with spiciness as from the '97, a remarkably rich and supple wine for the vintage, all softness and sweetness. Meanwhile the '95 seems to have taken a long time to shed its tannic shell and will probably remain a little on the hard side whilst the '96 has more depth but is still showing something of the same hardness.The '98 was also quite sternly tannic in its youth but then the spice and sweetness took over. The '99 was always very soft for the vintage whilst the '00 has evolved into a fat, full-on more uncompromising style that will keep it going for several more years.
Château Pape-Clément 1996
Pessac (Graves), cru classé
In original wooden case
1 imperial per lot
You'll have to get up early if you want to follow Bernard Magrez. Now well into his 80s, he is a very fit man (and has a personal trainer), travels widely, noting everything down in his famous pocket book and is totally in charge of every aspect of his 42 vineyard estates, of which Pape Clément is the most important. He dresses impeccably, expects his staff to do the same and his incredible attention to detail mean that nothing is ever left to chance. He has totally turned around an estate that was previously rather hit-or-miss into a vineyard that performs regularly every year with modern fleshy and succulent wines which are always dependable, even if such a style is not totally to your taste.
I first got to know the wines through a cache of the '66 in magnum that I bought from a Delor special offer during the 1970s crash. They are probably too old now but at the time, they were a straight, true blue, very Cabernet wine with a menthol spicy flavour running through the quite hard tannins to remind you that they were from the Graves not the Médoc. They were a real class act. I still find that flavour amongst the fleshy, spicy ones of the much more modern, fatter and smoother wines of today, for which the quest for softness is spared no expense : grape-by-grape hand-denoduling, gravity filling into small wooden vats, a long cold soak at 8°C, whole berry fermentation with manual cap plunging and gravity filling into new barrels for the malolactic, then a full 18 month maturation in oak. Some think they are too oaky : for me, the rest of the wine is so powerful that I don't find it excessive.
The vintages in this sale are all but one from this modern period. The one that is not is the '85, showing all the tightness and finesse of that '66 so long ago. The '90 shows the beginning of Pape . Clément's smokeyness that later becomes intertwined with spiciness as from the '97, a remarkably rich and supple wine for the vintage, all softness and sweetness. Meanwhile the '95 seems to have taken a long time to shed its tannic shell and will probably remain a little on the hard side whilst the '96 has more depth but is still showing something of the same hardness.The '98 was also quite sternly tannic in its youth but then the spice and sweetness took over. The '99 was always very soft for the vintage whilst the '00 has evolved into a fat, full-on more uncompromising style that will keep it going for several more years.
Château Pape-Clément 1996
Pessac (Graves), cru classé
In original wooden case
1 imperial per lot
注意事項
On lots marked with an + in the catalogue, VAT will be charged at 7.7% on both the premium as well as the hammer price.
榮譽呈獻
Edwin Vos