1978 La Tache

The 1978 La Tâche Grand Cru is a wine that it took me almost 20 years to taste and then two came along within the space of a few months. This example was almost identical to the bottle previously tasted in Hong Kong in 2016. Again, it delivers a bewitching bouquet with traits of undergrowth and fern that intertwine with the precisely defined red fruit. It takes a little time for the subtle ferrous note to emerge. The palate is medium-bodied, multi-dimensional and conveys presence rather than mass or density, which I suspect it did in its youth. Symmetrical with disarming focus, you are taken aback by the way it fans out and persists in the mouth. It is a ballet dancer performing a perfect Swan Lake. Stunning. Tasted at the La Paulée in Beaune.

The 1978 La Tâche Grand Cru represented my fourth encounter with unquestionably the finest La Tâche of the decade. This is consistent with the bottle tasted at La Paulée just a few weeks earlier. It is certainly looking mature now that it is 40-years old. Yet, the bouquet is entrancing with scents of red fruit, forest floor/autumn woodland, morels and iron piping. The palate displays exquisite balance, the tannins abraded by time, quite sensual in style with a refined, slightly ferrous, sous-bois finish that continues for 60+ seconds. There is a profundity imbued into this La Tâche that is almost impossible to translate in words. 23,710 bottles produced. Tasted at the Romanée-Conti dinner at the Connaught Hotel.