I am delighted to be able to report upon a bottle of Balestard la
Tonnelle 1947 which I had from the late Peter Shamash, sometime
Chancellor of the Jurade, and which I had been keeping to celebrate my
rather too large birthday with a wine which had been on the vine when
I had been, as the lawyers say, ”en ventre ma mere”. At my age that
is a humbling experience but the wine was in at least as good health
as its contemporary. The bottle itself was interesting in that it
bore a ”Label de Controle• on the back with the Great Seal of the
Jurade de Saint-Emilion which must have been almost the first use in
250 years of the Seal and the first assertion of its historic powers
of control of wine quality since the Revolution (when most of the
Jurats were guillotined). I have posted photographs of bottle. seal
and wine colour on the Jurade website
(www.Jurade.org.uk/Tasting/gallery/index.html) if anybody is
interested. The cork was in poor shape, with a smell of rot to the
top half but, fortunately, solid for the last 3 or 4 mm. The initial
nose was musty but a little, though very pleasing, bouquet developed
on it quite soon when I decanted it very gently into a narrow necked
decanter immediately before serving. I had not intended to do so but
the first sip poured clearly showed that not only would it stand
decanting but was likely to benefit from it. The colour was quite
amazingly good, a far deeper red than I had expected with only a
little brick red to brown on the rim and with only a very small clear
edge to the rim — charactersitic of wine ready to drink rather than
that which was in any way over the top. The wine was both at first
and throughout far better in the mouth than was promised on the nose.
The texture was pure silk rather than the soft velvet which I
associate with other fine old wines I have drunk. On the palate it
was quite dry in the middle but very well rounded. It was in length
of flavour and after taste that it was so remarkable. Rich ripe
fruit seemed to burst into the mouth as the wine reached the back of
the mouth and it lingered powerfully for a full five minutes or so,
coating the whole palate with a much fuller flavour that had been
initially present with the wine still in the mouth. I had been
intending to serve it with a marvellous joint of ribs of Dexter beef
but in the end we drank this for pure pleasure, unaccompanied by
anything. [The beef was graced instead with 1986 Figeac which was
itself wonderful and we followed it with a 1998 Beausejour-Bécot with
some very good Montgomery Cheddar, some Cotherstone and a new cheese
which I would heartily recommend, Stichelton, a very creamy Stilton
made with unpasterurised milk which makes it almost with a creamier
texture and more rounded and less acidic flavours than even good
Stilton. (see www.stichelton.com or
http://www.nealsyarddairy.co.uk/chri...pingtips.html).
Middle Eastern Orange cake was accompanied by Ch. Coutet 1980 — sadly
my last bottle bought in a bin end sale some 15 years ago for GBP
7.39. We had started with a Smoked Haddock Florentine and a 1988
Binner Pinot Gris.]

Just to stop people knocking on the door next year, I had better
explain that, very sadly, we do not often drink like this but we
rather pushed the boat out, not only to celebrate Christmas but also
my 60th birthday and my father‘s 88th one.

Tim Hartley