TN 89/90 Bordeaux

[Simon Grant]

89/90 BORDEAUX @ HAWKSMOOR - Hawksmoor, Guildhall (23/08/2021)

• 1990 Château Olivier Blanc - France, Bordeaux, Graves, Pessac-Léognan
  Last of the case. Medium to full straw. Quite viscous. A touch of wet wool and lanolin. Semillon texture and flavour profile. Fills and puts on weight with air. Very decent for what it is. ***1/2 (90 pts.)

• 1989 Château Lynch-Bages - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac
  If not tip-top, a very good bottle of this after some variable experiences. Deep ruby. Dense cassis on the nose. A little richer and more rounded than the 90. Nicely rich with a good line. A touch of sandlewood. Really lovely. My no.2 of the night. ***** (95 pts.)
• 1990 Château Lynch-Bages - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac
  A step up on a previous bottle, but still a little four square cf the 89. Similar colour.similar blackcurrant nose with a slightly dusty top note. Velvety with slightly furry tannins. Classic, archetypal Pauillac. Very good but just lacks some flair if one’s being critical. **** (93 pts.)

• 1989 Château Pichon-Longueville Baron - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac
  Beautiful sanguine ruby, slightly prunes element to the nose. A touch maderised? A little pinched on the palate too. Something not quite right here. Maybe low level TCA rather than oxidised? Stripped anyway. Shame, as this can be an absolute beauty. On this showing *** / 88 (88 pts.)
• 1990 Château Pichon-Longueville Baron - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac
  Similar colour to the 89. Nicely classical nose. Really lovely, rich and smooth. Silky to the LB’s velvet. Blackcurrant but with a nicely cool structure coming through. Just lovely. my WOTN. ***** (95 pts.)

• 1989 Domaine de Chevalier - France, Bordeaux, Graves, Pessac-Léognan
  Smooth, rounded. Classic tobacco, cigar box and warm gravel. Rounded, a little more weight than I remember from previous bottles with just a touch of heat.**** (93 pts.)
• 1990 Domaine de Chevalier - France, Bordeaux, Graves, Pessac-Léognan
  Smooth, rounded, cool fruited, nicely dense. A little darker and denser than the 89, but also a little more composed and assured. Cool elegance. A really good showing as I normally prefer the 89.****1/2 (94 pts.)

• 1989 Château Phélan Ségur - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Estèphe
  Quite a showing. Nicely cool, classical nose. More weight and padding on the palate. Sweeter fruited. Classic cassis and cedar. A touch four square cf the Talbot. **** (92 pts.)
• 1989 Château Talbot - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Julien
  Consistent with a bottle five years ago. Classic claret. Lovely line. More elegant and complex than the Phelan. Nicely mature, just a lovely drink now. The right balance of maturity, vitality and sheer drinkability. ****1/2 (94 pts.)

Posted from CellarTracker

Thanks to Gareth for organising, and to fellow attendees for a lovely evening with some splendid wines. A shame that the 89 Baron didn’t turn up as well as it can do, but everything else shone, and even the blue ribeye that turned up no colder than medium was flavoursome enough for it not to be a concern.

Really noticeable that wines such as 90 DDC, a hot vintage, turned up at a very drinkable 12 abv. Surely the recipe has changed for modern vintages, as well as the weather?

 

[Simon Grant]

 

[christopher prain]

Didn’t make it for high tea but arrived for dinner. Proper claret on show, 12.5%, bit of green, structure, rigour - probably quite different to the Vin de Gardes that were made in the 40’s of the equivalent wines but what’s being made now? We discussed and more knowledgeable voices said that high alcohol is almost inexplicable, green has been removed and purity pursued but at what cost? So buy the old wines if you can they really are quite lovely, they were worth the wait.

 

[Ian Hampsted]

An interesting and enjoyable evening where the reds could broadly be categorised into two groups: the bigger more powerful wines (I don’t like to use the term ‘heavy hitters’) and the lighter-styled, classical wines. Our plans were thrown somewhat awry as Christopher was unavoidably delayed by well over an hour, and we ended up serving the Lynch and Baron flights first rather than at the end.

I find myself in agreement with Simon’s excellent notes. Many thanks to Gareth for organising this splendid tasting dinner and to all who contributed.

My tuppence halfpenny:

Sharpener

Olivier 1990 Blanc

Came across as shy at first and a bit lacking, but evolved beautifully over the evening taking on some pleasant fresh herby notes. Nothing profound here, but did it’s job well and most satisfying. 90

Part one

Lynch Bages 1989

This also started slowly and was quite muted initially before it began to unfurl even though it had been double decanted a couple of hours earlier. I struggled initially to get my head around this wine, which I have not had for quite a few years. It is difficult to articulate what you get here, but there notes of compost, cinders/ash, graphite, pencil lead, tobacco, pine needles. Not primary fruit driven. Like the Barons of the same year overseen my Jean-Michel Cazes, the 1989 and 1990 Lynches are big strapping wines and somewhat atypical for Bordeaux, especially the 1989 Lynch. It is big framed, voluminous, rumbustious, savoury and mouth filling, broad and deep, with a lot of power and a long finish. Coming back for another taste at the end of the evening it was magnificent. This is rightly an iconic wine which will keep going for a few more decades. Would be wonderful to have a stash of these in large formats, but that train left the station a long time ago. 96 points and my wotn: by a whisker.

Lynch Bages 1990

This is a bit easier to get your head around and like the Pichon Baron 1990 is a sensationally good, full-on and full-bodied Pauillac. If it had an engine it would be a five litre V8. It has been even longer since I have had one of these and my previous concerns about this wine being too ripe and too low in acid were assuaged by this superb bottle. Rich, ripe but not overly so, this wine is smoother and less of a hooligan than the 89, with tobacco, cedar and earthy notes and a superb texture. 96

Pichon Baron 1989

Please refer to Simon’s note. I persevered with this but realised it was just not a good bottle. Shame because good bottles of this are very much in keeping with the other three wines in this first half of the tasting. NR.

Pichon Baron 1990

I have had this a few times in the last couple of years and will be having it again in October at another offline! This case of 90 Baron has been consistently brilliant and it is in the perfect drinking spot now. Rich, ripe, multi-faceted with wafting cerise cherries and luxury cigar box aromas, full-bodied, powerful and expansive on the palate with a long finish. Also 96. I had this and the two Lynches tied for wine of the night but gave the nod to the 1989 Lynch because it had that extra slightly wild, unruly, side to its personality. This however was the group wotn.

So these were the big strapping, powerful wines, and it was difficult initially to adjust to the other wines which initially came across as somewhat weak and lacking by comparison. But really the second batch of wines in part two are more typical of mature classic claret than the Barons and Lynches in part one. Because after all great claret is arguably more about harmony and equilibrium than brute power.

Part two

Domaine De Chevalier 1989

Perhaps a smidge below the stellar bottle we drank at La Trompette a few weeks ago, but still very impressive. Classical medium bodied, tobacco, gravel and warm wet stones. This I think does need drinking up relatively soon, but fabulous now. 93

Domaine De Chevalier 1990

Quite similar to the 1989 perhaps a tad riper and less savoury, but beautifully resolved anyhow. Light on its feet for a 1990 (just 12%ABV) the accent is on finesse not power. I suspect this has been drinking splendidly for 15 years, it also will not repay further keeping. Beautiful now. 93

Phelan Segur 1989

This is a delightful claret from a somewhat less glamorous address in a perfect place. The sort of wine to look out for at auction. A bit fuller than the DDCs and Talbot, and it may outlast them too. As SG noted maybe it does not quite have the precision of its flight mate, the Talbot, but an ever so satisfying mouthful of claret. 92

Talbot 1989

The accent here is on class and finesse. It is cool fruited with classical cigar box, cedar and lead pencil it finishes beautifully with such precision. Another wine which will not repay keeping but delivers enormous pleasure right now. Based on that 94.

Plenty of discussion points to chew on especially old vs new. Meanwhile, let’s look at the old score board: