a fine wine tasting archive
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Before the label said Piè Franco it said only Franco, for three vintages. This is the second of them: ungrafted Nebbiolo from the Gabutti parcel that Teobaldo Cappellano planted when everyone told him the phylloxera would take it. Thirty-one years on, the wine was wide open and still had something in reserve.
For Krug, a vintage is not 'a wine from a good year' but a portrait of a year too distinctive to blend away. Thirty years on, the 1995 — Champagne's first generous season after a difficult run — still stands upright.
Hervé Duboscq, a former railway worker, bought seven hectares of neglected vines in 1952 on a life annuity. His son made the estate famous for Merlot and new oak in a commune known for neither. The 1995, at twenty-five, closed a five-bottle evening.
Antoni Tàpies drew a nose, a mouth, an eye and two hearts in red for the 1995 label. Twenty-five years on it stood at the end of a long table, a head above the magnum next to it.