The heart on the label of Calon Ségur is not decoration. The Marquis de Ségur owned Lafite and Latour in the eighteenth century and is supposed to have said that he made wine at both but his heart was at Calon — the estate he had grown up with, at the northern edge of Saint-Estèphe.
It is the most northerly classified growth in the Médoc, and there is more clay in the vineyard than in the gravel banks further south. The wines come out firmer and more savoury as a result, slow to open and long-lived once they do. In 1985 the property was still held by the Capbern-Gasqueton family, who kept it until 2012 and ran it in a deliberately old-fashioned way.
The vintage was warm and dry, which filled out Saint-Estèphe's natural sternness. Among the classified 1985s this remains one of the more affordable ways to give a real Médoc bottle from a particular year.
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Producer: Château Calon Ségur
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Vintage: 1985
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Appellation: Saint-Estèphe AOC
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Format: 75cl
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Region: Bordeaux, France
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Style: Red
Where it is likely to be now. Saint-Estèphe's firmness helps a wine last, so a well-stored 1985 Calon Ségur should still be intact — savoury and dry rather than fruity — though nobody can promise how a forty-one-year-old cork has behaved.
Who it suits. The heart on the label makes this the obvious 1985 for a wedding anniversary, forty-one years this year, rather than for a birthday.
Condition. Listed in good condition, with nothing noted against the label, capsule or fill level.
Provenance. Bought to order from a professional European merchant. We check fill, label and capsule when the bottle reaches us and photograph it before it ships.
Delivered in 7 to 10 working days, tracked. Transit cover can be added at checkout.
Sold as a collectible item, as seen. No guarantee is given on drinkability.
