Cellar Favorite: 1947 Petrus

BY NEAL MARTIN | DECEMBER 15, 2025

The 1947 Petrus is one of the most legendary Bordeaux wines of the twentieth century. It is revered as much as it is counterfeited. I have been privileged to experience several bottles, which ranged from disappointing to awe-inspiring. But like almost every other living human being, I had never encountered this wine in magnum until it was served blind at a friend’s half-century celebration. The wine’s context deserves consideration. In the post-war period, Petrus was merely a decent Pomerol, an appellation whose wines were often traduced as easy-drinking and certainly less noble than the Médoc. Nevertheless, at that time, redoubtable proprietor Mme. Loubat would have been in her pomp, and as history has proven, her convictions were prescient and well founded.

This magnum of 1947 Petrus originated from the cellar at Red Lion House in Chiswick Mall, a Grade II property near Hounslow. It had lain there all of its life before relocating to another cellar in the southwest several years ago. The bottle had been inherited by the owner’s son, and subsequently the son’s wife, before being sold to my munificent friend. The wine is slightly deeper in colour than what I had observed in other bottles, presumably due to the larger format. Just a thinnish bricking on the rim. The nose is indescribably gorgeous with melted red fruit, cedar, touches of mint and juniper. There is such stunning delineation that you have to pause in wonderment. The palate is not intense or turbo-charged, the latter indicative of dubious provenance. Rather, it retains some of its flesh and feels lithe, yet still gently abraded by the passing years. What is preserved is perfect acidity with balletic balance. The ‘47 is endowed with unerring symmetry and, like the genuine legends of the twentieth century, seems undiminished by time. It revels in its dotage. When its identity was finally revealed, it was logical that we were drinking a manifestation of Merlot that is unmatched. 100/Drink 2025-2035.

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