Back when I wrote the first piece on Château Magdelaine, I included a note on the very first bottle of the 1982 which I had crossed paths with from the estate. To put this in context, the 1982 vintage was the first great...
Back when I wrote the first piece on Château Magdelaine, I included a note on the very first bottle of the 1982 which I had crossed paths with from the estate. To put this in context, the 1982 vintage was the first great vintage of Bordeaux to come along in my career in the wine trade, and I probably have more notes over the years on the 1982s than on any other vintage of claret, but I had never tasted the ’82 Magdelaine prior to a tasting organized to fill in some of the gaps for the article. Subsequently, I have drunk several bottles of the 1982 and this is a superb vintage of Magdelaine that is very, very close in quality to the 1985, but I still have to give the ’85 a slight edge for even greater breed and complexity than its slightly broader-shouldered and more voluptuous counterpart. That said, the 1982 Magdelaine offers up a beautiful nose of red and black cherries, plums, cigar wrapper, chocolate, a classic signature of limestone soil, a gentle touch of nutskin and a discreet base of vanillin oak. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied, bright and complex, with a great core of plummy fruit, melting tannins, impressive acidity for an ’82 that adds brightness and vibrancy on the very long finish. As I observed back in 2007, the ’82 Magdelaine is a suave and sophisticated example of the vintage that reminds me a bit of the 1982 Figeac at age fifteen, when I could not keep my hands off of that wine and drank up my case over the course of less than two years! I am doing much better with my remaining bottles of ’82 Magdelaine.