Michael Schuster: The year of the great frost—dismal weather, very little wine produced. There simply wasn’t any 1966 in the cellar, so we had the 1956 instead—Lilian Barton’s year! Pale ruby; a sweet, earthy, delicate bouquet, red-fruit and gravel fragrant, a fading-rosepetals potpourri; light and brisk to taste, most of its flesh receded, but smooth within its dainty tannin; fresh, delicately long, but distinctly bright-eyed. Charming, pretty, engaging—frail, but all there, I would say. Attractive “old bones” in a way the 1986s will never be. A delightful encounter with a great rarity, from a (very) difficult year. A bottle to support the assertions that fine claret can be “a long time dying,” and that old, fading fine wines are often tout en bouquet. Thank you for that opportunity, Lilian!