© Wine Gem Treasure from cellar

The other night I was searching my cellar for something to drink and came across a bottle of 1996 Houghton’s White Burgundy I had buried below a pile other ready-to-drink wines. White Burgundy from Houghton’s has long been regarded as a wine that is worth putting down for a time, especially in good vintages like 1991, 1995 and 1999.

The 1996 vintage may not get the accolades of other vintages, but the bottle I had was spectacular and worth the rewards of cellaring, or more to the point forgetting about. I have since re-orgainsed that stack and will pay a little more attention to it over the next few weeks.

Tasting Note: Deep golden colour. Aromas of lanolin, honeysuckle, a hint of popcorn and showing development. The palate was still intense with sweet butterscotch, honeycomb flavours, and you get a hint of muscat somewhere along the way as well. There is some limey, lemon citrus acidity flavour and a hint of apricot towards the finish. It does still hang around in the mouth although the fruit is starting to fade. This was a real surprise to find and I cannot wait to slowly have a look at the case of 1998 and 1999 vintages I have over the next few years.

I would still give this around 16/20.