Giscours is enormous by Margaux standards: a whole hamlet at Labarde, with a park, a lake and a polo field, and eighty-odd hectares of vines on gravel croupes running down towards the river. Under Nicolas Tari through the seventies and eighties it made some of the most dependable wine in the commune, in quantities that mean bottles still turn up today.
And 1983 was Margaux's year. The rest of the Médoc had a good vintage; Margaux had a great one, catching the summer heat and dodging the worst of the September rain. The wines came out perfumed and firm, and the better ones are still alive four decades later.
This bottle's fill sits at top shoulder, a little below the neck, which is normal for a claret of forty-three years and has been recorded openly by the merchant rather than glossed over. The match of estate and vintage here is an unusually good one.
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Producer: Château Giscours
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Vintage: 1983
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Appellation: Margaux 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. Margaux 1983 makes the strongest case of any wine in this vintage for actually drinking it, though the top-shoulder fill counsels caution, and the bottle is sold as a collectible without a guarantee of drinkability.
Who it suits. For someone born in 1983 turning forty-three in 2026 who would rather have a wine that is genuinely good than one that is merely old, since Margaux is where that year delivered.
Condition. The wine sits at top shoulder, very slightly below it, a level the trade considers acceptable for a bottle of this age and one that reflects four decades of slow evaporation rather than any fault.
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.
