1982, '89 and '90 Left-Bank Bordeaux Dinner

Imperial Treasure Shanghai, Ngee Ann City, Singapore
Tasted Friday, October 30, 2015 by Paul S with 546 views

Introduction

After a whole series of Burgundy dinners, we had a couple of very successful deviations to the Northern Rhone and Piedmont. This time round, we decided to continue to go off the beaten path and return to a place where quite a few of us started our serious wine drinking - Bordeaux.

We had some superb on the night. With the theme being 1982, '89 and '90 First Growths and Super-Seconds, one would expect that really. However, even though we all really enjoyed the wines and I scored them as well as any other set of wines I have had this year, we somehow missed the visceral pleasure that we got from either the Piedmont or Rhone dinners, and certainly from Burgundy dinners in the past that had wines from the same bracket that we had tonight. Don't get me wrong - the Bordeaux we had were all really good, even great, but they were just somehow missing that magic spark. Even though the 1990 Las Cases was absolutely brilliant, I think it was perhaps only the 1982 Palmer that came close to capturing both head and heart for me. I hope this does not mean that we have been spoiled for Bordeaux for good!

Flight 1 - WHITES (2 Notes)

  • 2007 Domaine Fontaine-Gagnard Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet 93 Points

    France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet Grand Cru

    This was a nice start to the night. Not a perfect white Burg, but very good indeed. It had such a lovely nose, with gentle drifts of butter and cream, sweet red apples, some dried flowers, and some earthy, spicy, minerally accents around the sides of the bouquet. Beautiful. The palate was rich and round, with a surprising amount of depth for a 2007, showing a thick, almost oily fleshiness behind its well-integrated flavours of red apples and cream layered over a mouthwatering white fruit base on the midpalate. All this was punctuated with by a citrusy streak of 2007’s bright acidity, which help to keep the wine relatively tight and focused all the way into a nice finish seasoned with a little mineral and spice. My only issue is that the wine seemed a bit heavyset at points, with a touch of alcohol floating out at its edges - quite unusual given Fontaine-Gagnard’s usually spare, elegant style. Overall though, very good indeed, and it has the chops to last for many years barring any premature oxidation.

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  • 2011 Willi Schaefer Graacher Domprobst Riesling Kabinett 92 Points

    Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer

    Wow - what a change a year or two makes. This is really coming into its own now and it absolutely lovely to drink on the night. It had a light, dancing nose that is so Mosel, with lithe scents of grapefruit, sweet apples and white peach laced with touches of mineral, lemon zest and white flowers. All very subtle, but really pretty. On the palate, the overt sweetness that the wine had in its infacy has mellowed quite nicely, leaving behind a beautifully pure mouthful of white fruit with peachy hints, all held into a brilliant crystalline balance. A beautifully drinkable wine - this was soft and creamy in texture, yet laced with wonderfully integrated acidity that gave it that such a wonderfully energy and focus. Lovely finish too, with a gentle seam mineral and just the lightest kiss of spice gliding away on the midpalate. 2011 is not the strongest vintage in the Mosel, but this perhaps allowed the house to craft a more classic Kabinett that drinks beautifully well at a relatively young age. Yum. NB: on a side note, this actually went pretty well with a notoriously hard to pair dish of steamed hairy crabs.

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Flight 2 - FLIGHT 1 (3 Notes)

  • 1990 Château Haut-Brion 94 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Graves, Pessac-Léognan

    An excellent wine, but this was somehow less enjoyable than both a 1982 Palmer and a 1989 Pichon-Lalande in the same flight. Strangely, the Haut-Brion, which is usually quite the crowd-pleaser, just felt a little more modern and less effortlessly charming than the two Medocs. Nevertheless, this was still a very good wine in its own right. It had a beautiful nose, very lifted, with wafts of fragrant tobacco and cedar wood, sweet cassis and plums, then a little sous bois, a touch of vanilla bean and just that little floral hint, all coming together in a bouquet that had a wonderful clarity to it. At first, there were just a few drifts of volatile acidity in there somewhere, but these parted quickly enough. The palate carried on where the nose left off in lovely fashion. It felt really clean and fresh, with wonderful lifted acidity racing through very compact, but nicely pure flavours of cassis and black cherries seasoned with tobacco and earthy sous bois notes. It felt nicely rounded on the attack and midepalate, but there was still a little bite of fine tannins towards the long tobacco-infused finish, which then saw little notes of mint and menthol and a pat of funky earthiness emerge with time. This was perhaps less ready than other two wines on its flight, so that it came across less nuanced and multidimensional, with the fruit more strident and primary, but I really did love the effortless clarity and juicy energy it had along with the very linear precision and focus that the very best 1990s all share. Excellent stuff for sure, but I would actually have left this aside for another 4-5 years at least - I think it will be just lovely when it hits its stride.

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  • 1982 Château Palmer 95 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Margaux

    A delicious Palmer, drinking at its absolute peak – this really brought a smile to my face. The nose was a little less showy off the bat than either the 1990 Haut-Brion or the 1989 Pichon Lalande that shared its flight, but there was a wonderfully subtle charm about it, with gentle wafts of tobacco and spice, dried flowers and herbs, a touch of garrigue and lavender, all floating around a core of cassis, earth and cedar wood. Lovely stuff. It was on the palate where the wine really stole the show though. This was just at a beautiful place – it was soft and round and velvety, almost melting in the mouth with sweet notes of cassis and plums and fleshy blackberries all seamlessly integrated with a gentle acidity and silky, barely there tannins. Gorgeous stuff – refined, elegant, really genteel; maybe lacking some of the sheer power and depth of the other wines on show, yet having a quiet strength and presence that kept it from being insubstantial. “Seductive without quite being feminine”, I wrote on my notes. Lovely finish too, with a whisper of sweet spice emerging amidst the fleshy fruit. A perfect example of a wine at its absolute peak - this was singing on the night.

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  • 1989 Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande 94 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac

    Shockingly youthful for a 1989, this was a lovely wine that showed well while still hinting at greater things in the future. It had a beautiful nose, pure Pichon-Lalande I thought, with autumnal shades of forest floor, wet leaves and damp wood floating alongside more fragrant notes of cassis and spice. Really nice. The palate was a lovely marriage of strength and grace, with pure but powerful flavours of cassis and black cherries framed by velvety tannins, and then subtle nuances of earth and tea leaves, cedar and wood spice and a twist of orange peel, all adding to a nice sense of complexity. I just loved how complete it felt. There was a touch of the sunny generosity of the vintage on the wine, but it also had a punchy strength and wonderful, linear precision that made it feel almost more like a 1990 than a 1989. Great stuff. This was certainly starting to show well, especially with its lovely integration and balance which made it a joy to drink, but there were still vestiges of a youthful tightness at points, especially in the long finish, where a deep river of buried minerality was just starting to surface. Give it a few more years in the bottle and this should really be something special.

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Flight 3 - FLIGHT 2 (2 Notes)

  • 1982 Château Léoville Las Cases 94 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Julien

    Superb, but still really tight and youthful for a wine that is already some way into its fourth decade of life. This was opened in the morning and decanted for a couple of hours, yet placed next to two amazing bottles of 1990 Las Cases on the night, it somehow came across even tighter and further away from full maturity than its younger siblings. It was powerful stuff though, starting out with a really strong nose. Masculine and compelling, the bouquet wafted out of the glass in deep draws of cassis and tea leaves and spice, mineral and earth and pencil shavings – as so often with a Las Cases, I would readily have guessed it as a top-end Pauillac just on that nose alone. It had a really heavyweight palate to go along with that nose too, with the deep cassis and sour cherry flavours at its core still coming across strong and full and absolutely youthful, almost bursting with a juicy energy that gave the wine a real liveliness in spite of its great depth and weight. The only hints that may have given its age away were the more matured notes of orange peel on the midpalate and a kiss of 1982’s raisiny flavours at the finish. Otherwise, with fine tannins and fresh acidity still giving it a real sense of structure, it could well be at least another decade before we see this wine really hit its stride.

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  • 1990 Château Léoville Las Cases 96 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Julien

    Wow. I have not had such a good Bordeaux in a long time. While this has the chops to age for decades yet, it actually drank pretty well after a couple of hours in the decanter, beating out a very strong line-up on the way to being crowned the wine of the night. On the nose, it had a really nice bouquet that seemed to be a deeper echo of the 1982 Las Cases that we had alongside, with rich accents of spice and mineral, and then savoury notes of earth and meat and powdery herb, all woven through rich, gummy cassis aromas. Lovely. Like the 1982 Palmer (which was the best bottle in the earlier flight though), it was really on the palate where this wine truly shone. There was just something wonderfully pure and effortlessly complete about this that made it stand out from amidst its competition. It had an immense amount of strength and power, with really full, large-scale flavours cassis and blackberries underscored by a serious spine of mineral and savoury, meaty tones as it stretched into tremendously long finish. Yet such was the purity and precision of the wine, with its deep core of wonderfully velvety tannins and juicy acidity, that all this power and intensity seemed to be carried without any effort at all, so that the impression that one was left with was of clarity and grace, rather than weight or density. Really gorgeous stuff, and with a great dish of roasted lamb shoulder – just magic. I could have gone on drinking this all night. I should say that we actually had two blind bottles of the 1990 on the night; one was perhaps more advanced than the other, so it showed a bit meatier and more savoury; but other than that, both bottles were consistently wonderful. A great wine all round, and while really enjoyable even now, it has the balance, depth and structure to go on aging for just about forever.

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