1986 Vintage Bordeaux Tasting
I recently had the good fortune to taste a flight of 1986 Gran Cru Bordeaux. They were:
- Chateau Margaux
- 2nd Label – Margaux Pavillion Rouge
- Chateau Cos d’Estournel
- Chateau Pichon-Longueville Baron
- Chateau Du-Cru Beaucaillou
I don’t often get a chance to taste labels like these in aged vintages, but I have drunk many wines in the last 20 years from producers in the French AOC regions of Margaux, St. Estephe, St. Julien and Pauillac. These Left Bank Bordeaux areas are the home of some of the best Cabernet Sauvignon produced in the world. Margaux is by far my favorite Left Bank region and St. Estephe next. Not that the others are not very good, just that these two regions match my palate better. I have been tasting Bordeaux Left Bank vintages back to the late 90’s. This was my first tasting from the 1980’s vintages.
My Impressions
These wines were all original purchase origin and were stored in near perfect conditions. There was hardly an oxidized brown tint at the edge of the glass with all these wines. The wines tasted amazingly fresh! None were fruit forward (if they were at release), but had good acidity and a few still had residual tannin. Perfectly balanced, these wines were expertly made… but in a completely different style than 2000 era Bordeaux wines. All tasted as if the fruit had been harvested early. There were vegetal and savory flavors reflecting a completely different winemaking and vineyard management style than today. Whether you enjoy wines with this much age on them is dependent upon your palate. All of these wines would have been fabulous accompanying a Black Truffle Risotto, although much of the nuance would have been lost. In the bigger picture, my palate has found Bordeaux Rouge Gran Crus from before 2000 tasted best at roughly 20 years of bottle age (depending on producer). After 2000, that started to change… In my experience, that has now become 10-15 years of bottle age.
Margaux AOC Region
I have tasted and enjoyed many different Margaux producers in quantity over the last 20 years: Brane Cantenac, Cantenac Brown, Giscours, Lascombes, Rauzan Segla, Prieure Lichine and my favorite Malescot St. Exupery. All of these with 5-10 years of bottle age tend to be fruit forward, structured, balanced and all often have a great… what I call “Margaux mouth-feel”. This is sometimes silky, but always softer, round and mouth-filling. This was missing from the older Margaux tasted here. In fact today, most Bordeaux premium wines are made to taste fruit-forward and vegetal flavors can be viewed as a fault. Especially for New World palates, I would suggest Margaux producers. These wines often are not as “muscular” as the other Left Bank regions.
Wine Styles… They Were a’Changin’
Bob Dylan aside, it was obvious something happened in the 90’s to the winemaking philosophy of Bordeaux producers. Most, would attribute this to chasing the Robert Parker 100 point score… and all that implied. Some would suggest back to the ’82 vintage, when Parker’s influence began… but I was not a wine drinker back then and can’t bear witness to that thinking. These comments attributed to the BBC in the late 80’s refer to this, “The globalist domination of the oenological press by Parker’s ideas has led to changes in viticulture and winemaking practices, such as reducing yield, harvesting grapes as late as possible for maximum ripeness, not filtering wine, and using new techniques—such as microoxygenation—to soften tannins. These widespread changes in technique have been called “Parkerization”… have led to a fear of homogenization of wine styles around the world as Parker’s tastes are irrevocably changing the way some French wines are made…”.
The changes in Bordeaux wine styles that began again in the 2000’s were most definitely impacted by attempting to appeal to the U.S. palate and open the U.S. market to more French exports. These changes I can attest to. I have witnessed that difference from 2000 to 2015. Personally, I feel the pendulum has swung a little too far towards softer, fruitier wines in France (and the U.S.) – as a generalization. As a wine consumer, your palate matters and whether you prefer these type of wines should be what drives your purchases, not wine critics.
The Experience
Tasting these wines was a tremendous opportunity. I don’t often have the chance to evaluate wine styles over 30+ years in any wine region. Tasting these 35 year old wines side-by-side was a real pleasure and thanks go to Mr. Mandel, a fellow wine collector here in Phoenix. His generous hospitality made this a truly special experience.
Douglas Levin - Trained, Certified Advanced Sommelier and Wine Writer
Cool Climate Wine 