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The Greatest Wine on the PlanetHow the '47 Cheval Blanc, a defective wine from an aberrant year, got so good.

By Mike Steinberger
Posted Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2008, at 6:19 PM ET

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Manoncourt's notes from the '47 vintage. Click image to expand.

But the local ice distributor had regular clients—fishmongers, butchers—who were also battling the heat and had dibs on his suddenly precious frozen water. Lining up each day, Manoncourt endured interminable waits to get the 20-kilogram blocks of ice he needed, but his persistence paid off and he was able to avoid a stuck fermentation. Sixty years later, sitting in a cool, unlit room looking out on the gardens of his château, Manoncourt shook his head as he reflected on the events of that summer and fall. "It was such a difficult vintage," he said. The toughest of his career? "Yes, maybe it was."

But, against all odds, this hellish harvest yielded some monumental wines. Two Pomerol estates, Petrus and Lafleur, made clarets that have now achieved mythic status, and the Right Bank turned out a bevy of other gems. However, it was the '47 Cheval—the product of a stuck fermentation, according to the château, with the corresponding vital signs (3 grams per liter of residual sugar, high volatile acidity)—that acquired the greatest renown. In part, this was because Cheval Blanc had name recognition that Petrus, Lafleur, and other right-bank estates did not yet enjoy. Mostly, though, it was a reflection of the wine's quality. Its technical sheet may have read like an autopsy, but it proved to be staggeringly good. David Peppercorn, a British Master of Wine and Bordeaux specialist, first tasted the '47 Cheval in 1952 and says it was sublime even then. "It was delicious as a young wine," he told me, "with a wonderful sort of opulent texture that was very unusual for a Bordeaux in that day." The voluptuousness was a function of the 14.4 percent alcohol content, which at the time was off the charts for a Bordeaux.

The '47 vintage elevated Cheval Blanc to the ranks of Bordeaux's elite and is, along with the 1961 Petrus, the wine arguably most responsible for rendering the 1855 classifications anachronous and putting the right bank on equal footing with the left in both pricing and popularity. This didn't happen overnight; Cheval Blanc continued selling in bulk until the 1960s, and the '47 Cheval remained a fairly inexpensive pleasure well into its third decade. Bipin Desai, a physicist at the University of California, Riverside, and one of the world's pre-eminent wine connoisseurs, says the '47 was a frequent presence at tastings he attended in the 1970s. "It's hard to believe how frivolously we drank it," he recalled over the phone a few months ago. Times have changed: At a Christie's auction last year in London, a case of the '47 sold for $147,000, or just over $12,000 per bottle. Suffice it to say, Desai is consuming his remaining '47s rather gingerly, and bottles of the '47 offered for sale these days are being scrutinized for authenticity as never before.

So what makes the '47 such a singular, head-spinning creation? Desai calls it a "cuddly wild boar," a vivid metaphor that gets to the wine's oxymoronic essence—it is a lovable beast. Michael Broadbent, another British Master of Wine and the former head of the Christie's wine department, describes it as being "port-like" in its concentration and sweetness. It is a comparison that has stuck: The port analogy pops up in many tasting notes about the '47. Robert Parker wrote the following in his most recent Bordeaux book: "What can I say about this mammoth wine that is more like Port than dry red table wine? The 1947 Cheval Blanc exhibits such a thick texture, it could double as motor oil. The huge nose of fruitcake, chocolate, leather, coffee, and Asian spices is mind-boggling. The unctuous texture and richness of sweet fruit are amazing … perfect or nearly perfect every time I have had it." Parker has rated the wine 100 points, his highest score.

Parker offered some other observations about the '47. "Consider the fact that this wine is, technically, appallingly deficient in acidity and excessively high in alcohol," he wrote. "Moreover, its volatile acidity levels would be considered intolerable by modern-day oenologists. Yet how can they explain that after 55 years the wine is still remarkably fresh, phenomenally concentrated, and profoundly complex? It has to make you wonder about the direction of modern-day winemaking." Not really. Sixty years ago, oenology was a crude science, entire vintages were regularly lost to the capriciousness of the weather, and truly good wines were maddeningly rare. Thanks to technological advances, such as temperature-controlled cellars, and vastly improved know-how, almost every vintage now yields wines worth drinking, and the really outstanding years cough up far more winners than in the past. Modern winemaking isn't without problems, but on balance it has undergone a glorious revolution.

Pierre Lurton of Cheval Blanc. Click image to expand.

Besides, the '47 Cheval is not a wine that someone contrived to make; it is a wine that essentially made itself, a point that Pierre Lurton, Cheval Blanc's current director, emphasized when I met with him at the château last September. A jovial 51-year-old, Lurton is viticultural royalty: His family is one of France's leading winemaking dynasties, and in addition to his work at Cheval Blanc, he also manages Château d'Yquem, source of the world's most celebrated sweet wine. To Lurton, the '47 Cheval is miracle juice; it is a wine that should have been destroyed by its defects but that somehow blossomed into an ageless, ethereal wonder. "All the faults became qualities; all of these excesses went into the service of an exceptional wine," is how he put it to me. To the extent that the château staff contributed to this improbable success, Lurton said, it was in recognizing that the elements were going to have their way with the wine and being courageous enough to stand aside and let it happen. I asked if he thought it would be possible to replicate intentionally a wine like the '47 and if it would be smart of winemakers to try. Lurton turned the question around: He said vintners today would be loath to take the kinds of chances required to produce such a wine—too much money is at stake now. "They would not want the risk," he said. "They are too prudent."

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Mike Steinberger is Slate's wine columnist. He can be reached at .
Photographs by Mike Steinberger.
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Comments from the Fray

Beautiful article; but entirely too much passion, too much obvious delight. Mike Steinberger should be reassigned to making wine pairings for truck-stop meals along the entire length of I-95, so that we Frayers can feel a little better about our jobs.

--Savory Goodness

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I must admit to an embarrassment of epic proportions. About 20 years ago, I attended a blind tasting of cabernet/Bordeaux wines at a friend's home. Among the wines our generous host uncovered at the conclusion of the event, was the '47 Cheval Blanc--which I had described to the assembled multitude as the "best zinfandel I have ever tasted." After your wonderful article on this spectacular wine, I don't feel quite so bad since others have described it as port-like, etc. To this day, it still remains the best wine to cross these wine-stained lips.

--WineBoy

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First of all, I would like to commend the journalist for his rightful love of wine and article. While I agree with all the positives about the 47 Cheval Blanc and Robert's perfect score (having tasted it myself), I cannot fully justify the title of "Greatest wine ever made" unless the 'ever' is replaced from the statement or a proviso is added. For it does not do justice to wine in general and to all the great wines produced in human history in particular. Besides, one of the many wonderful characteristics of this divine drink called wine, is their individual uniqueness which, by default, makes comparing (in absolute terms) one wine with another an impossibility. Further, not to mention the different abilities to taste and appreciate a wine given to and/or developed by each human being. In my lifetime I have tasted several wines that, based on some characteristics, could also be considered the 'greatest ever made.' Nonetheless, I would never dare to do such a thing!

--J C Van den Berg

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