1939 &amp; 1950 Cheval
Blanc

BY NEAL MARTIN | DECEMBER 09, 2019There is always a frisson of excitement in coming eyeball
to eyeball with a prewar bottle of Bordeaux, especially one from a vintage
dismissed and written out of history. The quality of the 1939 vintage was
trivial against the backdrop of war breaking out across Europe, though for the
record it purportedly produced light wines, better for whites than reds.
Examples are hardly ever seen nowadays. Apart from a couple of Sauternes, the
only one I had tasted was a <a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/wines/rauzan-segla-1939-rauzan-segla">1939
Rauzan-Ségla</a> at last year’s vertical. But I recently attended a dinner where
the highlight was a bottle of 1939 Cheval Blanc. I was intrigued. Why this particular vintage when there are
so many other legendary years to choose from?

Pierre-Olivier
Clouet, Cheval Blanc’s technical director, was on hand to give me the
background. The challenging 1939 growing season provided only a minute yield,
and since there was little market for fine wine, not to mention an immediate
shortage of glass to produce bottles, the société
civile that owned the estate decided to sell 14 barrels to Mähler-Besse.
The Bordeaux négociant found a client
in New York and duly sold 90% of their stock across the Atlantic. However, when
it came to shipping the wines in 1941, the vessel was forced to return to
France due to the threat of German U-boats. Consequently, the bottles
languished at Mähler-Besse until recently, when one of the team notified Pierre
Lurton and brought a bottle to Cheval Blanc for their inspection. The château does not own a single bottle of
1939, ergo Mähler-Besse’s stock represents all that exists. Bottles varied in
ullage, and they decided to re-cork the best, electing to do so at the négociant rather than the château so there can be no claim that
this is ex-château stock. A few of
these re-corked bottles have been released onto the market.<img alt="" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.vinous.com/uploads%2F1575907648181-cheval+blanc+1939.jpg"> 

So how does it taste?

The 1939 Cheval Blanc is far better than I
expected, not least because the bottle had lain in a single cellar virtually
its entire life. It is surprisingly deep in color. The nose has retained a
sense of vigor, offering black fruit, mint, touches of chimney soot and cracked
black pepper – rustic but pleasant. The palate is medium-bodied and a little
fleshier than anticipated, displaying an agreeable bitter edge with cedar and
sage toward what feels like a more Cabernet-driven, tertiary finish. While it
is short and nowhere near as complex as the postwar legends, it is perfectly
drinkable and enjoyable. 90/Drink
2019-2024.

More recent vintages
were opened, but for now, I include just one other since it comes from around
the same era.<img alt="" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.vinous.com/uploads%2F1575907663104-cheval+blanc+1950.jpg"> 

This dust-caked bottle was filled and corked in
1952 in Berry Brothers &amp; Rudd’s cellar, where it lay until around 6pm on November
25, 2019.

The 1950 Cheval Blanc was bottled by Berry
Brothers &amp; Rudd two floors below where it was opened some 69 years later. The
1950 is a highly regarded vintage, revered on the Right Bank, but poorly so on
the Left. This was similar to two château-bottled examples that I have tasted previously,
albeit not for many years. Deep in color with thin bricking on the rim, it has
a glorious bouquet of ample red cherries, wild strawberry and blood orange,
signifying a Saint-Émilion that must have been precocious in its youth. There
is something almost sorbet-like about the aromatics, despite the wine’s age.
The palate is medium-bodied with lithe tannins, a fine bead of acidity and real
intensity that reminds me of the 1948. I detect just a soupçon of volatile acidity that is a trait, even a virtue, of
Cheval Blanc from this era, imparting a tangible edginess that counters its
intensity. A marvelous wine that continues to give pleasure. 94/Drink 2019-2030.

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