Aging chateau L'Evangile is 'worth the wait'
The benefits of aging wine for several decades are perhaps more often talked about than they are experienced, but one journalist who was given the chance to taste a chateau L'Evangile 1979 said it was well worth the wait.
In a Wall Street Journal blog piece, Will Lyons said the L'Evangile, which along with Cheval Blanc and Petrus comes from the Bordeaux commune of Pomerol, had gained tangible finesse from its 30 years of aging.
"Its tannins had mellowed to such an extent they were virtually non-existent," he wrote.
"What one could detect was a slight dry flavour of tea. There was also the Pomerol signature cedar character and a soft, ripe, mature red fruit note on the nose, such as blackcurrant."
Chateau l'Evangile is a 14-acre vineyard that was owned by successive generations of the Chaperon family from the mid-1800s, until the Rothschild group purchased a controlling interest in it in 1990.