1990 Lagrange with Mac & Cheese

First the tasting note for the wonderful 1990 Chateau Lagrange….

Deep garnet color. Notes of cedar, tobacco leaf and still strong fruit. Black currant. Blackberry. Hints of a red fruit mix as well but layered in the background behind the currant and blackberry. The texture of this wine is wonderful. It has a very soft and velvety feel. Very fine tannins and a super long finish. An outstanding wine what deserves an A+.

Now the story… I picked up three bottles on the internet auction site WineBid.com for what I think was approximately $75 each. Note bad for a wine that’s been retailing lately for $100+. I bought it during the summer of 2005 after actually having it at a dinner at Chateau Lagrange on our trip to Bordeaux in May 2005. That’s a whole other story.

This was obviously a special occasion wine for me given the price I paid. However, we ended up having it with some of my sister-in-law’s Mac & Cheese that she made for us just before we moved in October. I had been storing the three bottles in my winefridge in the closet and when pulling the wines out as we packed for our move, I notices that the cork on this wine had been pushed into the wine and there was significant seepage as a result. In addition, there was actually ice around the capsule that had eroded the tin. I had never seen anything like it before.

So, I set the wine out and chipped away the ice. I then took candle wax and tried to “reseal” the wine. When this didn’t work, I knew I had to open the wine and hope for the best. We had packed our kitchen at this point but thankfully Jasmine, my aforementioned sister-in-law, was making mac and cheese for us that night. We took the wine down to her apartment and enjoyed what ended up being a wonderful combination. Impressively, Jasmine’s homemade mac and cheese stood up to the 1990 Lagrange better than I would have ever thought.

Don’t get me wrong though. My next bottle is going to opened alongside a rack of lamb.