1987 Beaulieu Vineyard Library Selection Cabernet Sauvignon, Rutherford

Thirteen bottles available. Nearly forty years old.

Beaulieu Vineyard is the estate Georges de Latour founded in Rutherford at the turn of the twentieth century, and the one where André Tchelistcheff spent thirty-five years from 1938 teaching California how to make Cabernet: cold fermentation, cellar sanitation, small French oak, malolactic. Half of Napa learned from him.

What "Library Selection" means

It denotes a bottling of aged stock held back in the winery's own cellar and released later. BV has used the designation across decades of vintages. The estate does not publish a formal definition of the programme, so we will not invent one: treat provenance on any Library Selection bottle as winery-cellared, and judge the individual bottle.

Note also that this is the Rutherford estate bottling, not the Georges de Latour Private Reserve. Those are different wines at different tiers, and scores from one do not belong on the other.

Where this bottle came from

Bottles at this age reach us through private collectors we know personally, people who bought long ago and cellared properly ever since. Every one is inspected before we take it and stays in temperature-controlled storage from the moment it enters our hands.

What to expect

We could not find a published critic score or tasting note for the 1987 Library Selection, and we are not going to lift one from the 1990 or from the Private Reserve. What we can tell you is what a well-kept thirty-nine-year-old Rutherford Cabernet does: the fruit has receded into dried cherry and cassis, and the cedar, tobacco, earth and dried-herb notes have moved forward, over tannins that have long since resolved. Expect a mature wine, and expect some bottle-to-bottle variation at this age.

The 1987 vintage

Better than its low profile suggests, and harder than most people remember. Prolonged drought and a cool spring cut fruit set badly, then mid-summer heat waves shrank the crop further, leaving very small berries and clusters that had to come in fast. Decanter rates it four out of five and calls it one of the decade's best Cabernet vintages, while noting the wines carry sinewy tannins. A small, concentrated, tannic year whose best wines aged well.

The details

• Producer: Beaulieu Vineyard
• Appellation: Rutherford, Napa Valley, California
• Vintage: 1987
• Format: 750ml
• Drinking window: now. Open it.

Serving

Stand upright for two days. Decant gently off the sediment no more than thirty minutes before serving at 62°F, and drink it across the first hour. Roast lamb, mushrooms, or aged cheese.

Thirteen bottles, shipped from our Florida cellar in protective packaging. Browse more rare and limited vintages.