Tasting Latour, Age and Beauty

The world of Bordeaux is a hierarchy as exact and rigid as the seating arrangement at Spago on a Saturday night.

The rules were laid down quite clearly in 1855 and haven’t really changed since. There are the seemingly countless crus bourgeois and petits cha^teaux. There are 18 Fifth Growths and 10 Fourth Growths. There are 14 Thirds and 14 Seconds. And there are just five First Growths: Lafite-Rothschild, Haut-Brion, Margaux, Latour and, the newest (added in 1973), Mouton-Rothschild.

In the real world, of course, only three classifications matter: wines you drink every day, wines you drink on special occasions and wines other people drink on special occasions.

I’ve always thought of First Growth Bordeaux as wines drunk by other people to celebrate special occasions I’ll never have. They are wines to celebrate a big movie deal, being bought out by Microsoft or inheriting your father’s Fortune 500 company.

They are as limited in production as well, and they are priced accordingly. Recent vintages start at about $250 a bottle retail these days, and you practically have to know somebody who’ll save you a place in line to buy them at that. (These extravagant prices are the result of the fine wine craze of the ‘70s and ‘80s, which has driven up the price of First Growths as much as 50-fold. On the other hand, records from 1767 show that Latour already sold for more than 20 times the price of everyday wine.)

Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that First Growths are always the best wines. Part of the fun of the Bordeaux game is finding so-called lesser wines that are almost as good as or equal to the famous firsts.

Still, there’s no denying the excitement of a First Growth Bordeaux. In “The Saint,” when Val Kilmer wants to make an impression, he ordered Latour. Not a recent vintage, either, but one that was grown and vinified before most of the movie’s audience was born. (Curiously, it was the 1957, which says something about the level of fact-checking in Hollywood these days. Wine experts know that ’57 was last drinkable in the mid-’80s.) What might make this the ultimate First Growth movie scene is that when the wine steward tells Kilmer that ’57 Latour cost some ungodly price, he placidly replies, “I’ll take two, then.”

So what if you’re not Val Kilmer, and you’re certainly no Saint? How do you get a shot at Latour? Some 60 people paid $800 each for that privilege Friday afternoon at a special tasting put on by Santa Ana’s Wine Club. Yes, the price was high, but this was not just a shot at a Latour but a sampling of 24 vintages dating to the historic 1945.

A tasting like this occurs only once a year at best, and they’re usually invitation-only events put on for a small circle of collectors. Ron Loutherback’s tasting Friday was democratic, at least in the modern sense: If you had the contribution, you were represented.

There were the usual wine aficionados, milling around and regaling each other with anecdotes of the last time they tasted the 1945. There was the group that arrived in a stretch limousine, fidgety in tuxes and formals, as if for some belated prom night. And some folks were there, apparently, just because they could be. One couple took every opportunity to pepper Frederic Engerer, the director of Cha^teau Latour, with questions about how long each wine had been allowed to breath--rather like asking Babe Ruth how many practice swings he took before each home run.

Engerer, a model of French aplomb, handled it all gracefully, even when he was asked rather pointed questions about a couple of wines that clearly were not what one might have hoped for. Yes, there is such a thing as bad Latour, or rather a bad bottle of Latour. The 1949 I tried had a powerful, off-putting smell that I couldn’t place until someone suggested dill pickles (too bad, since it is a respected vintage--current retail about $1,300 a bottle . . . if you can find it).

When asked about it, Engerer looked puzzled and stuck his nose deep into the glass before allowing that, yes, well, perhaps he could understand how this wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea. He attributed it to too-recent recorking.

Similarly, the 1961 I tried had the distinctive aroma of stewed tomatoes. It was probably bottle variation, since my neighbor’s sample from the same year had a lovely perfume that Engerer described as “pure, what do you call them? After Eight? You know, those chocolate mints you get at restaurants.” Still, if you’d paid the roughly $1,800 that vintage brings and wound up with the bottle with the stewed tomato aroma, you might be a tad nonplused.

But the bad bottles were by far the exception, particularly when you consider that these were wines that dated back to the end of World War II.

Rather than take us through a strictly chronological tasting, as is commonly done, Engerer grouped the wines in six flights that shared common characteristics, giving tasters an opportunity to sample the wine in a variety of situations and to try to arrive at a definition of what it means to be Latour.

The 1991, 1993, 1973 and 1972 wines were from vintages with severe weather problems (because of its proximity to the river Gironde, with its moderating influence, Latour is known for performing well in bad weather). The ‘67, ‘49, ’64 and ’71 were from smaller vintages that Engerer felt had been overlooked by the wine press (the ’71 was particularly nice: tight and dry with a whiff of pencil shavings--that’s a good thing).

The big guns began with the third flight, from vintages Engerer termed “classic”: 1975, 1994, 1978 and 1988. Then came the very ripe hot-weather years of 1995, 1985, 1989 and 1962, the “cold perfection” of ‘66, ‘61, ’70 and ’86 and the final flight of ‘82, ‘90, ’59 and ‘45, which Engerer modestly avoided describing as simply spectacular. He was practically alone in that.

Oddly, it turns out, the better the wine, the more difficult it is to describe. Lesser vintages are dominated by one or two scents or flavors. The greater the wine, the more tightly those components are knitted together. You start out talking about “cherries” and “cedar” and “tobacco” and wind up talking about “harmony” and “refinement” and “elegance.”

Texture becomes more noticeable too, particularly with a wine as notoriously tannic as Latour. What begins as grippingly mouth-drying becomes round and smooth then proceeds to supple and silky. In a few particular years, notably ’82 and ‘70, the feel is even voluptuous and velvety.

So what, then, is Latour? In general, and allowing for sometimes significant variations from vintage to vintage, I’d say it is a noticeably massive wine, high in tannins especially when young (though the 1990 and ’88 already were surprisingly enjoyable). There seems to be a darkness to Latour’s fruit in smell and flavor--think of very ripe blackberries or dark cherries--that is offset by the refined, balanced acidity of cassis.

When young, it tastes mostly of chocolate and mint (though the ’94 frankly suggested coffee grounds), giving way with some age to leather and cedar and, in some years, the distinctive undertone of truffles and earth.

The most remarkable thing about the wine is its longevity. In the last flight, you actually had to study the wines quite closely to detect any color difference between the 1990 and the 1945. Even at more than 50 years old, the latter was a deep cherry color, fading to brick only a little at the rim, as vibrant as most 5-year-olds.

Not unexpectedly, this wine--from a tiny, miraculous vintage--was the best of the show. Aromatic of truffles and cedar, just beginning to dry out a little in the mouth, it was one of those rare, otherworldly wines that actually transcend beverage and become almost a spiritual experience.

Of course, the realist points out, at $2,000 a bottle, it ought to.