1982 Canon, St-Emilion

This wine shows fabulous aromas of stones and flowers with dried fruits and spices. It’s subtle yet full with ultra-fine tannins and a gorgeous, long finish.

These days, I seem to drink a bottle of the 1982 Château Canon every couple of years. I no longer have any of this wine in my own cellar, as it was so good in its relative youth that the handful of bottles I owned back in the day were happily consumed with friends many years ago. But, the wine has only gotten better with each passing year and today offers up a deep and beautifully sappy bouquet of black cherries, black plums, menthol, cigar smoke, a very chalky foundation of soil tones, lovely smokiness, a dollop of new oak and a lovely topnote of sealing wax. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied, plush on the attack and rock solid at the core, with stunning limestone mineral drive, modest, buried tannins and great length and grip on the complex and seamlessly balanced finish. I cannot recall a previous bottle of the ’82 Canon that is so emphatically defined by its gorgeous underlying chalky soil tones, but this bottle was as limestone-infused as any great old vintage of Ausone or Magdelaine!