MICHAEL FRIDJHON: Wines that please until the day they die
Many modern consumers have never encountered the transformation that takes place over time
Collecting wine — in the same spirit and with the same intent as, for example, collecting stamps — is a self-defeating enterprise. The moment the collection is complete you cannot drink a bottle. Anyone who buys it — and pays the premium normally attributable to completeness — acquires the same burden.
An entire line-up of every bottle of Mouton Rothschild, each with a different artist’s label — from the launch vintage of 1945 until the most recent release — is not simply the vinous equivalent of a bird in a gilded cage: it’s a bird whose mortality gathers momentum with each passing year. A well-stored bottle of the 1945 might still give drinking pleasure, but not the 1946 or the 1963 or the 1965. And in very little time nor will even the best vintages of the 1950s, the 1960s and the 1970s...
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