1986 Château Ausone

Community Tasting Notes (16) Avg Score: 89.2 points

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  10/15/2022 - MC2 Wines Likes this wine:

  A wine that I love in a year that I love. It was more ready for business in the beginning (even going so far as to not have all of the crazy sediment that the '83 HB did when we were double decanting and then rebottling). This was more accessible and a bit plushy but with that black and more earthy notes. Driank very well. Not sure that it had the integration or evolution as the '83 HB, but still a really lovely wine.

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  9/8/2021 - Cailles wrote: 84 Points

  20 Vintages of Ausone (1986 - 2015): All wines tasted single blind. Ausone is a rare bird and hence, the term „once in a lifetime“ certainly applies to this tasting. A few oberservations: 1) Huge quality improvement in recent years: Only after 2005 I can see Ausone up there with the best Bordeauxs thanks to less oak, more depth and precision and a hightened elegance. 2) The high Cabernet Franc share in the blend (ever increasing) makes these wines quite unique, lighter and with more airiness and a darker fruit expression than most right banks. 3) The wines need a lot of time: Ausone is rather a late bloomer and does not provide as much early drinking fun as many of its right bank peers - especially the great vintages (05, 09, 10, 15). 4) The best wines with the highest scores were almost all off-vintages (a first for me). The highest scores went to 08, 06, 07, 14. These wines are weightless and show how great the big vintages will be once mature. Only the 05 was up there with the off-vintages. 5) Wine of the night and my best off-vintage Bordeaux ever was the 2008 (rated 98 pts).
  
  TN: This was the oldest and weakest wine today. Lots of faulty notes with cellar stink, wet cardboard were so dominating that everything that would have been there is masked. I guess 84 pts is rather generous.

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  8/30/2021 - sirpat00 wrote: 89 Points

  Ausone vertical (20 vintages) (Fribourg): Ausone vertical featuring 20 vintages from the 1986-2015 period. Hosted by a private collector an moderated by J-M Quarin. All wines were served single-blind with no prior decant. What struck me was the outstanding performance of some of the off-vintages, especially 2008, 2007 and 2006. That said I was super-excited about the 2015 which was pretty closed but showed enormous potential. The notoriously late-maturing profile was apparent with many of the 90ies vintages not yet ready. Full list of vintages and scores included in the tasting story.
  
  Tasting note:
  Dark leather, Williams and Kirsch, red but also dark cherry with an arrow of mint piercing through it all. Also dried herbs. Really nice nose, but the palate already showed signs of tiring with plenty of tannin left which could not be balanced by neither the acidity nor aromas. Thinly textured too. That said, what was left in terms of aromas was very nicely aged.

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  12/31/2018 - Red Loki Likes this wine: 95 Points

  Wine of the night at NYE 2018. Still in excellent condition - great structure, softening tannins, classic bordeaux black fruits and pencil. Beat out a 1986 Phelps Eisele.

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  5/11/2018 - retired_and_roving Likes this wine:

  WOTN for me - simply stunning in a stellar line up. The nose had dark fruits and spices and a bit of leather. In the mouth this just keeps revealing itself with layers of dark and red fruit, minerals, spices, earth, dried leaves, black tea and leather. It smells and tastes great - I think I am in love. Still steals the show on Day 2 from the minimal bottle remains.

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