1961 Latour a Pomerol
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The 1961 Latour à Pomerol is one of the most feted, elusive and sadly faked bottles of Bordeaux in the 20th century. The provenance of this is as good as you will find anywhere. It had been purchased by legendary English wine writer Edmund Penning-Rowsell, whose collection was auctioned to the generous host who poured it at the table. Essentially, it had spent its entire life in two exemplary cellars. In some ways, it is an outrageous decadent Pomerol whose modern-day equivalent might well be the 1982 Le Pin. Like the one previous bottle I encountered, it boasts an intense cassis, violet and glycerol bouquet that is turned up to "11" yet manages to retain wonderful delineation. The palate is likewise opulent and ravishing, pure and vivacious. There is breathtaking symmetry and wondrous delineation, though I could understand why someone might regard it as a bit ostentatious and lacking a little refinement. I just adore its disregard for convention and its determination to give untrammeled pleasure. Tasted at the Pomerol 1961 dinner in Hong Kong.
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Robert Parker
Neal Martin
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The 1961 Latour-à-Pomerol has an astonishing, quite decadent nose with black plum, cassis and faint smear of honey, all beautifully defined and certainly more precocious than the 1961 Petrus tasted the previous year. That said, I notice how the aromatics dispense with some of its vigor in the glass, becoming more graceful and less hedonistic after 45 minutes. The palate still retains its sweet core of black fruit laced with glycerin that implies late harvesting. Like the nose, it becomes more refined with aeration, showing no signs of any oxidation. Does it live up to its 100-point reputation? Maybe not on this occasion, although that takes nothing away from one exquisite mature Pomerol.