1971 x 50

BY NEAL MARTIN | FEBRUARY 12, 2021

Nineteen seventy-one was a pretty good year for music lovers: fifty classic 33rpms were released within 12 months 50 years ago.

What’s your favorite month on that list?

The reputation of this musical annus mirabilis has only recently been recognized. Music critics were still mourning the end of the Sixties and the Fab Four, compounded by the untimely deaths of Hendrix, Joplin and Morrison. Ipso facto, they did not fully appreciate the musical landscape. Only in hindsight, when the legacy of those albums is fully comprehended, does the stature of that year come into focus. If you still need convincing, consider that in 1971, David Bowie also released The Man Who Sold The World and recorded all but one track of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. That alone guarantees its status!

A few albums from my own vinyl collection – all original pressings, of course!

Quality Spread (Except Where It Counted)

It was also a vintage year for wine!

This outrageous claim (hence the exclamation mark) is one that I have made countless times over the years, only to be met with incredulous looks; it is dismissed as sentimental bias toward my birth year, or inebriation. While I accept that it is not as iconoclastic as 1945 or 1961, at least allow me to put forward my argument for 1971, just for today, because it’s my birthday and I’m “allowed” to do what I want.

The reason 1971 is often overlooked is that in those days, the quality of Left Bank Bordeaux dictated the reputation of a vintage by dint of its domination of the fine wine trade. But this is like judging 1971’s music on, let’s say, Elvis Presley, whose Elvis’s Christmas Album did not make the above list. Alas, 1971 was a mediocre vintage in the Médoc. Poor flowering during springtime reduced the size of the potential crop to 40% below the previous year due to widespread coulure acutely affecting the Merlot. But a mini heat wave from July 8 to 17 and another hot spell in August portended a magnificent vintage. And it would have been magnificent had it not rained between September 19 and 21. These downfalls divided the growing season into the lucky winemakers able to pick their earlier-ripening Merlot before the first spots of rain, and those tending later-ripening Cabernets, a majority of whom had to wait for ripeness and only started picking from September 27. Alas, the rain compromised the quality of the Left Bank and many afflicted by low fixed acidity levels due to the hot weather in summer were unable to last the distance. Clive Coates MW cited the fact that many châteaux prioritized quantity over quality and therefore blended juice from younger vines and lesser terroirs.