1982 Chateau Magdelaine Saint-Emilion Grand Cru

You cannot buy this wine anymore. Not from the château, not from the négociant, not from anybody. Château Magdelaine was erased in 2012 when the Moueix family folded it into Bélair-Monange and retired the name for good. The last vintage was 2011. What exists now is all that will ever exist, and we have the 1982.

Ninety-six points. Wine Spectator called it gorgeous and sexy, dark ruby with a garnet rim, full-bodied, loaded with sweet fruit and finishing long on flowers and earth.

Jean-Pierre Moueix, the man who owns Pétrus, bought Magdelaine in 1952 when it was a wreck. He replanted it. The 1956 frost killed every young vine and he replanted it again. Three years earlier Saint-Émilion had written its first classification and put Magdelaine in the top tier as a Premier Grand Cru Classé B, where it stayed for the next fifty-seven years.

Eleven hectares on the limestone plateau of Saint-Martin. Six of them on the ridge, close enough to Château Ausone to throw a rock. Two thousand cases in a good year. '82 was 90% percent Merlot, the highest proportion of any Premier Grand Cru Classé in the appellation.

And 1982 is the vintage that built modern Bordeaux.