1975 Château l’Evangile, Pomerol (750ml)

"The 1975 vintage of Château l’Evangile is one of the greats of Pomerol of the second half of the twentieth century. For fans of this estate who only know the estate’s wines after its purchase by Lafite-Rothschild in 1985, the style of the 1975 would come as a bit of a surprise, as it is a wilder, more powerful and less polished example of this great terroir, which really has more in common stylistically with Château Lafleur’s wines in this era than it does with the more elegant expressions crafted here today. The wine is beautifully complex on both the nose and palate and is only just reaching its apogee of maturity at age forty-one, offering up a deep nose of dark berries, black plums, bitter chocolate, cigar smoke, a bit of meatiness, gravelly soil tones, charred wood and a touch of Pomerol’s fresh herb tones in the upper register. On the palate the wine is complex, full-bodied and beautifully balanced, with great depth at the core, still a bit of ripe backend tannin to continue to