Turned another year older last year, did what any sensible person does, and bought a case of my birth year wine. Picked up a case of 1978 Château Monbousquet through Catawiki — fairly obscure St Émilion Grand Cru, not exactly a name that sets pulses racing. First real aged wine purchase, first time using Catawiki. The bar was “hopefully not vinegar.”
Bottle 1: Cork disintegrated on contact, fell straight in, and it was corked on top of that. Didn’t even taste it. Drain.
Bottle 2: Actually drinkable. At 47 years old, I’ll take it.
We poured glass by glass through a mesh filter rather than decanting the whole thing at once — seemed like the less disruptive approach with something this old and fragile. Whether it helped, who knows, but it felt like the right call. Left the last inch in the bottle; the sediment situation was not worth the fight.
In the glass it was exactly what you’d expect from a nearly five-decade-old Right Bank. Faint red fruit, leather, a whisper of tobacco. Tannins completely resolved — silky in that almost-watery way very old wines get. The color was the most interesting part: started bright-ish red at the rim, shifted noticeably tawny and cloudier as we worked down the glass.
Not a great wine. Not even close. But it was there, still standing, still saying something — and that’s genuinely the whole point of birth year bottles. You’re not chasing quality, you’re chasing existence. Sometimes you get a sink-pour. Sometimes you get a quiet little survivor.
Four bottles left. Curious to see how many have made it.