Beschreibung:

Château Palmer Château Palmer has been blessed with a distant and recent history of attracting brilliant people to it. First, Wellington's General, a certain Charles Palmer, who bought the estate in 1814 on his way back from the Spanish campaign, on a whim, from his stage-coach co-passenger, the recently widowed Marie Brunte de Ferrière and then proceeded to get the wine introduced into English high society. The next brilliant move came in 1938, in a period of slump and neglect, when four of the most progessive Bordelais at the time (Sichel, Bouteiller, Ginestet and Mahler Besse) recognising the potential, purchased and totally refurbished the estate. And the rest is history. Well, not quite : the relatively few legendary Bordeaux vintages of the 50s, 60s and 70s were mostly glorious at Palmer : '53, '61, '66, '70, '71 (yes!) and '78 (yes again) and were the basis of its current reputation. As a Bordeaux merchant in the 70s and 80s, I did not have much commercial access to the wines. However I got to taste an awful lot of Palmer and got totally mesmerised by the « completeness » of its velvety texture. For the first few years of our life in Bordeaux, we rented an appartment in the Rue Ulysse Gayon by the Barrière du Médoc and « Le Plantié » was our local restaurant (now the MacDo at the crossroads !). They offerred '61 Palmer on the wine-list so we ordered one (top wines were cheaper in those days but it was still an eighth of my monthly wage). I was completely bowled over and asked the owner M. Vitrac how many more he had. He said : a case. I replied, reserve them for me and I'll drink them all before Christmas, which we did and from then on, I sought out bottles wherever my travels took me. As I mentioned above, we are not quite finished with the brilliant people of Palmer. This does not concern the vintages we offer today but in 2004, one Thomas Duroux, who had been happily working at Opus and then at Ornellaia, was asked to become Palmer's estate manager. He brought with him the ideal of biodynamic farming, and the vintages since have seen an enormous shift to an even deeper expression of the vineyard. None of these brilliant people would have been attracted to Palmer if they had not felt a profound belief in the vineyard, which possesses some of the best gravel on top and the best gravel-clay further down the slopes in the whole of the appellation. The extraordinary thing is that they have always insisted on maintaining a high percentage of Merlot on the gravel, while others relegated it to the heavier clay soils. They did this in the face of the current trend of « Cabernetsauvignonisation » and « Pauillacisation » of Margaux – and I include Cha^teau Margaux in that observatio. The wines of this catalogue demonstrate perfectly how all this Merlot influences the wine : 2000, although 47% Merlot, not nearly ready for drinking 1999, at 46%, still and dry as any Cab 1998, also at 46%, still a bit of a young monster 1995, at 51%, maybe showing its Merlot a little more : still very spicy and finely textured but 1988, at 48%, back to a much more Médocy and tight style Then we come to the glorious pair of '82 and '83, both slightly more Cabernet dominated than the above, and both showing what Palmer can really deliver : very concentrated, intense, sweetly-textured, even plummy (in a nice way), the age enhancing their finesse. I am not sure which I prefer : the more thickly intense '83 or the finer '82. Château Palmer 1998 Cantenac (Margaux), 3ème cru classé In original wooden case 1 salmanazar per lot