Château Margaux 1996
Posted on 22 April 2011
My Bordeaux luck factor seems to be on the upswing. Not only has the case of 2009 Poyferré I bought for investment risen by 35% since I paid for it. Just a few months after a friend’s friend generously opened the 2001 Lafite for me, I’ve had a chance to try the 1996 Château Margaux yesterday.
Not bad, but 650€?
It’s a nice bottle of wine, so to speak. It tastes of quality: low yields, planned fermentation, good equipment, expensive oak, professional people. If you know your wines and you know your Margaux, the 1996 tastes exactly as expected. (Although it showed younger than I’d thought). It’s solid manufacture: the wine has a robustness to it that made me think of a good piece of furniture. Not IKEA style, but a well-crafted cabinet you buy from a small ébéniste and that never lets you down. In fact, it didn’t so much taste of an agricultural product, and certainly had none of the mystique we tend to associate with great wine.
The bottle was purchased from a private person for around 230€. We shared the expense (and the tasting) between 7 friends. It’s a lot of money, although it’s considerably less than the current market price for 1996 Margaux: web searchers indicate 640€ as the lowest price today, and no earlier than Wednesday the wine was auctioned at Sotheby’s for £6900. That’s £575 or 650€ per bottle. 104€ per standard 125ml glass. When you taste wine by small sips, a sip is around 15ml. So just to inject a single byte of 1996 Château Margaux into your brain will cost you 12€. This is completely crazy. Yet it’s just the beginning. The 2009 Margaux was offered in futures last year for 850€ per bottle, and the 2010 will almost certainly be more expensive. I’ve certainly had the cheapest Château Margaux of my life.
Poland’s pioneer wine critic Marek Bieńczyk carries 1996 Margaux in a sock.
Yesterday was an enjoyable evening. We tasted the 1996 Margaux and it was refreshing to do so without trepidation or mystique. Perfectly consciously, we opened this wine way too early (it should ideally wait another decade) and yet we were relaxed about it. We also had some other Bordeaux that were fun to taste. The 1996 Château du Tertre was another Margaux that was quite nice upon opening: meaty and red-fruity, classic and digestible. (It deteriorated quickly however). It still had the original price tag on it: 108 French francs. That’s 16.50€, just a bit more than a coffee spoon of the 2009 Château Margaux. The 2010 will be around 35–40€ but it’ll need to wait a decade.
The good surprise of the night was the white 2004 Smith Haut Lafitte. White Bordeaux is a weird wine. It always tastes so oaky, without really being overoaked. But I usually prefer them young. I recently had the SHL 2001 and it didn’t thrill. This was a different animal. With all its oak, it had remarkable minerality and freshness. Sweet and fresh at the same time.
The 1986 Rieussec was corked. But it wasn’t my bottle, so perhaps my luck factor is still on the up.
22 years in the cellar and then spoilt: c’est la vie.
Disclosure
1996 Château Margaux – own purchase (expense shared with friends). 8 remaining bottles contributed by drinkers. Private room offered by a Warsaw restaurant; dinner was our own expense.