1994 Ch Beau-Sejour Becot

Restaurant Week came round again this week, which prompted a return to Garibaldi again, with the wifey and a bottle of the 1994 Ch Beau-Sejour Becot which the manager Paolo Colzani was kind enough to waive the corkage after I’d ensured that he and Raj, who was serving us, each had a glass to enjoy. Decanted on-site, where the dark and opague wine immediately exuded an attractive bouquet of blueberries and sweet blackcurrants, medium-bodied, soft and fleshy on the palate, saturated with fruit of surprisingly high quality that provided decent depth and body. With time, some of classic dryness of Bordeaux crept in with notes of dry leaves and mushrooms, the wine actually thinning out slightly. But with further aeration after an hour, it regained its fullness with further extension in depth and expanse, the wine still remaining remarkably fresh amidst emerging notes of earth, tar and a hint of raisins, fairly complex without any hollowness. 1994 is highly under-rated and, I suspect, is just beginning to come together after all these years. Quite excellent, for only SGD91 at Carrefour.