1940 Haut-Brion

Dinner at Paris 1930 in Taipei to celebrate dad's birthday.

1940 Haut-Brion - the nose was reminiscent of the last bottle that we drank, and of the other older wines from similar era. The fruit was still there, but this time the preserved plums was very evident. Mom loved this wine. I have never seen her so eager to drink anything with alcohol as she did tonight. She commented that this was "her type of wine" because she liked the acidity and the maturity. Since we drank the wine without decanting (for fear of the wine collapsing in the decanter), the wine was fairly acidic on the palate at the beginning. Of course we knew she really, really liked all types of Chinese preserved plums (酸梅湯) so this is definitely up her alley. As aeration occurred in the bottle, the tannins gathered strengh and the acidity faded on the palate. This, of course, meant that mom enjoyed the wine less as time went on.

Since the wine had been knocked around a bit and we didn't decant it (hence no chance to run it thru the usual coffee filter), it was fairly cloudy. As we neared the bottom, I stopped pouring because we were obviously going to get the sediement. Wouldn't you believe it, mom insisted on emptying the bottle! She waited until the sediment had time to settle in the glass, then drank the clear (if you can call it that) wine in one quick swoop before the sediment had time to move.

Full post on dinner is here.