1971 Château Haut-Bailly

Community Tasting Notes (6) Avg Score: 89.5 points

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  10/29/2023 - David Paris (dbp) wrote: 90 Points

  First bottle opened in 8 years. This has been open in the bottle for 3 hours, and in the glass for 30 minutes. There's certainly a vegetable note here, stewed fruits, perhaps a raw asparagus tip. It's very interesting intense and thick on the nose; certainly tertiary, as one may expect. Soft fruit on the palate, earth, soil, good acid on the palate, with some slight tannins. I'm surprised how bright and red fruited the fruit is on the palate. The finish hits a lot harder, with tons of acidity and it just keeps blooming the longer and longer you wait, which has a sensation of brightening the fruit left on the palate. The wine feels integrated quite well right now... the best of these bottles I've opened so far over the last decade.

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  1/4/2020 - JonnyG Likes this wine: 93 Points

  Stood up for two days (shame on me, as the sediment could have been minimized if I had been more prepared, though it was not that prominent). The cork was very soft, and a small end-piece crumbled when the rest was extracted. Slo-ox'ed for six hours. This is a formidable wine, with the tertiary characteristics I look for in a Graves of this pedigree: cigar ash, leather and sous-bois, in harmony with the gentle framboise flavors. Just enough acidity to provide a touch of energy which made things very interesting. The wine held firm for 3 hours or so, and I have a 1/3 of the bottle left to check in on tomorrow.

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  10/29/2016 - David Paris (dbp) wrote: 87 Points

  This one I slow o'ed for 8 hours in advance of pouring. Note follows similar to that of 12/20/2014 below, but offered a bit less red fruit and more dried dusty pages of an old book. It was very dried out on the finish. Enjoyable experience of age, but not quite as enjoyable as the prior bottle.

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  2/5/2015 - wprev Likes this wine: 92 Points

  right moment, after 44 years; 'should be perfectnow' said Michael Broadbent in 2002; still true; elegant, velvet, solid and complex

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  12/20/2014 - David Paris (dbp) wrote: 90 Points

  No formal notes, but this was nice. Opened one hour before consumption. The cork was one of the cleanest corks I've seen of this age... the top was totally clean and only saturated at the lower 25% of the cork, the rest clean. Color was mostly red, with some browning edges. The aromas were quite nice, showing nice red fruits, earth and spice. Pleasing acid on the palate which is also quite expressive of light fruit. Finish gets a little awkward here, with some old book notes, but still intact. I did note that the wine was best and degraded a little in the glass. I look forward to diving into a future bottle in further detail.

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