Leoville Barton & Bourgueil 1961
- adrianlatimer61
- Nov 4
- 4 min read
Updated: Nov 5
When you are past middle age, shall we say politely, it’s not often you get to taste your birth year vintage once, let alone twice in a few weeks. Especially when it happens to be the legendary 1961.
It started back in 2011 at a tasting of Bourgueil wines from Lame Delisle Boucard at Caves Bossetti in Paris. They were straight up from their tufa chalk cellars, cool and deep in the Loire Valley. And 100% Cabernet Franc. To be honest I know the wines of Chinon somewhat, but am not a huge fan of Loire reds as I often find the relative lack of sunshine leaves a rather green taste to the Cabernet Franc. But I fully agree that they age for decades, offer great value and are never hard or heavy like some Cabernet Sauvignons from further south.
Anyway, we had a 1989 which made me sit up and think as there was nothing mushroomy or green and then the last hurrah was 1961. Aged 50. Just like me. I bought for my half centenary and a couple for a friend of the same vintage.
But Bill then left France, went through a slightly unfriendly divorce and I ended up with 2 boxes of his wine in my garage. As the cellar was full, that’s where they stayed. Until he finally pitched up again for lunch in Paris 14 years later.
I suggested we eat at Maceo (Mark and Adrian Williamson’s restaurant as in the renowned Willi’s Wine Bar) as I knew I’d be allowed to bring a third 64 year old to the party. Presuming that a wine that ridiculously old and that had been sitting in my garage for so long would be well past it, I had a back up bottle in the bag that was 40 odd years younger.
The sommelier bravely got the cork out without any drama and came over with the decanter all smiles, a good sign. The colour was lovely, a faded but still bright red, of course bricky at the rim. The nose showed roast nut fleshy oak, but was very aromatic in a softly savoury old way. The palate was very soft, still carrying some red fruit, a hint of that Loire green pepper, but with nice balance and a good finish, just soft and rather lovely, everything gently melded together, dried flowers and fruit. Amazing!
And, of course, whereas the fabled top 1961 Bordeaux would have three or four zeroes to the price tag, this would have just the one. A wine whose grapes were picked probably a month after I was born, a thought that gives a glass of wine an oddly emotional weight.
Just after that I found myself in a friend’s cellar, another ’61 who had just picked up a few bottles from his birth year at auction, relatively inexpensively.
‘You probably shouldn’t hang on to them too much longer’ I added helpfully.
‘Yes. Well, you’re a ’61, shall we try one? What d’ya think, Talbot or Leoville Barton?’
Which would you choose?
For my 40th I’d been given an odd old bottle, another hark back to times past – a 1961 Leoville Barton but bottled by and with a Berry Bros & Rudd label on it, the historic wine merchant from St James in London (surely the only wine shop with a wooden floor, no wine on display but a set of huge balancing weighing scales used to weight King Louis Philippe of France). I even wonder if it was in a 72cl bottle.
And the wine? My first ever 1961? Not great – lots of humming and hawing and trying to find something nice to say, but the train had departed and we just looked down the tracks at a vanishing silhouette. Fruit and body pretty much gone, just the memories left.
So, obviously we needed to try again? But this time 24 years later. What was the chance of success, the omens were hardly singing?
But the level was good, mid shoulder, and the cork again came out fine, all be it rather black and wizened.
So?? A fabulous orange bricky red colour. An old wine nose of course, soft, a brief flash of curranty fruit in the mid-palate, savoury, but the finish getting mushroomy and a bit tart. Still very pleasant, just alive, and not at all bad for 64 yrs old, but definitely tired.
And the omen of the story? Of course the old cliché hangs true that there are no great old wines, just individual bottles (if you are lucky), but here we can add that sometimes the lowly can beat the exalted.
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Postscript - ‘The Wine in My Glass’
After some encouragement and a fair few blog posts, I have published (Sept 2025) a book about my travels in the wine world, people, places and, of course, wines. I am not a professional, so everything I say is objective and unbiased (so I can criticise when other journalists do not dare to do so for instance) and any profits will go to the Vendanges Solidaires association which was set up in 2016 to help winemakers who are in trouble after suffering the extreme weather conditions (frost, hail, fire, flood etc) which sadly are becoming ever more frequent: www.vendangessolidaires.com.
The book ranges from California to Sicily, via Salta, Jujuy and Patagonia in Argentina, Valtellina, Piemonte and Tuscany in Italy, Madeira and of course all over France (Burgundy, Chablis, Sancerre, Beaujolais, Bordeaux, the Rhone). I'm interested in the people, places and stories behind the wines we all love, not tasting notes and scores.
If you have found any pleasure and/or interest in this blog, I think you might enjoy it, especially as it has been brilliantly illustrated by Arabella Langlands-Perry who managed to juggle bringing up two young kids, helping run Maceo/Willi’s Wine Bar in Paris and producing artwork with an abundance of both talent and wit. Brava.
‘The Wine in My Glass – Tales of Wines, Winemakers and Places’
Published by The Medlar Press Limited, Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, autumn 2025. www.medlarpress.com      Â
Available from Medlar in UK, and/or from me in France or Willis Wine Bar in Paris.
