The pagodas are real. Louis-Gaspard d'Estournel spent the first half of the nineteenth century exporting his wine to India and came home with an appetite for eastern architecture, building a set of carved towers on a gravel rise at the northern edge of Saint-Estèphe. There is no house behind them, only cellars. He was known locally as the Maharajah of Saint-Estèphe, and Cos itself comes from the old Gascon for a hill of pebbles.
The vineyard looks straight across a stream at Lafite. Saint-Estèphe's clay subsoil holds water and gives wine with more grip and less immediate charm than Pauillac, which is why Cos was traditionally slow to open. In 1975 the estate had just passed to Bruno Prats, who spent the following twenty years turning it into one of the most dependable addresses in the Médoc.
1975 was small, hot and deeply tannic. This is a second growth from that year, still here half a century on.
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Producer: Cos d'Estournel
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Vintage: 1975
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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. Cos was built to last and 1975 gave it the tannin to do so, but at fifty-one years the wine will be austere at best.
Who it suits. For a fifty-first birthday, a 1975 anniversary or a company founded that year — the pagoda label makes its impression long before anyone discusses the cork.
Condition. No condition note came with this bottle, so the full report — fill level, capsule and label — is confirmed and sent to you before dispatch and before the bottle ships.
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.
