1940 Latour, ex-château

Dinner at L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon in Taipei.

1940 Latour (ex-château April 2011) - the sommelier decided not to decant the wine, and as he didn't want to shake the bottle too much by pouring too many times, he gave the three of us very big pours into the Riedel Sommelier Bordeaux Grand Cru glasses.  I think he probably poured 85% of the bottle into the three glasses in one go.  The wine was perfect.  From the moment I took the first whiff, I could tell this was a much, much better bottle compared to the one 10 years ago.  A beautiful nose of smoke and lead pencil came up from the glass to greet me.  The acidity was still a little high and the body still a little thin at the beginning.

With time and further aeration, sweet and grassy notes came out as the wine started to unwind and was no longer tightly closed.  After an hour, the nose was much more open, the sweet fruit a lot more apparent, and even showed a little black pepper.  The sommelier was right to gave us all really big pours and let the glasses act as decanters.  When we were done with the first pour, we got fresh glasses and the sommelier carefully poured out the remaining wine - with a little bit of sediment - into the them.  The bulk of the sediment was left in the bottle.  This last pour, too, was very enjoyable as it had even more body.

Full post on dinner is here.