Thinking of Maureen Dawney expert in authentification

I thought of you when I wanted to organize the traditional debauchery that we make with friends around the August 15th week-end.

I took in my cellar in the south a bottle with no label. A catalog of an auction sale lays near the bottle and I can read : Palmer 1990 the year is confirmed by the cork easily readable.

I look at the capsule and the name of Chateau Palmer is clearly carved, but the drawing does not evoke to me a Chateau bottling.

Anyway I take the bottle with the hope it could be good. To take risks is unavoidable.

When I want to open the bottle at 11 am for a lunch at 1:30 at the home of friends, I take the bottle in hand and it is only at this moment that I see a label with a code bar which is the same as in supermarket and I can read Palmer 1990.

Then I look at the capsule and I see a line around the capsule at the top which could be a cut made. Is the top of the capsule belonging to the capsule, I am nervous.

I cut the top of the capsule and I see some dark mud on the top of the cork which is good news. This cork has an age which corresponds to 1990 or around.

I lift the cork and I have a superb cork indicating Palmer and 1990 and from what I see no doubt is possible. The level is perfect, in the neck.

I smell the wine and I am happy. This will be a great wine and in fact, it was the winner of the lunch with seven bottles, before Lanson Noble Cuvée 1988 and a particularly good Mouton 1985.

A bottle with no label, with a label of supermarket, a capsule with a drawing which is curious, a capsule which could have been cut, a too perfect level, all that made me think of you. Because it was very difficult to say : this is a real Palmer 1990. But it was.

I am not used to such a drawing