A bit of fun today: Earlier this year I picked up two old Leroy négoce bottles at an auction. The one pictured (right) looks like it has no redeeming features – save for quite a nice old label; the wine is low in the shoulder, not perfectly bright and the colour is (optimistically) only light brown. Cutting the capsule you are met by the wonderful (not!) aroma of oxidation. I’m not going to extract the cork for a couple of hours.

Still, waiting in the wings is a bottle with less ullage, a brighter colour and only the smell of mushrooms under the capsule, of-course it’s a much younger wine – 1962 Meursault! I’ll see how it goes…