1981 Château Lynch-Bages

Community Tasting Notes (61) Avg Score: 90.8 points

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  2/28/2023 - ESubvaria Likes this wine: 95 Points

  This wine is almost too young.
  
  It had been stored by a collector at 55 degrees Fahrenheit its entire life.
  
  It is massive...with zero amber or bricking.
  
  Bordeaux is simply the best wine on the planet.

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  1/31/2023 - bacchus wrote: 90 Points

  shared with pat at selkirk manor. last tasted this wine on 2/15/2013. remarkably, impressions today are quite the same as what they were then. this is a very enjoyable wine from a vintage that did not earn much respect when it was released. i have tasted all the major vintages of lynch-bages starting with the outstanding 1961 and proceeding through to the 1980's with the exception of 1989 which i owned but sold without tasting due to financial hardship. of course, i can not place the '81 on the same pedestal as these other vintages. nevertheless, the unique character of lynch-bages combining soft fruit and earthiness shines through. tonight's bottle had the typical fragile cork. extracted in one piece but with a fracture just before release. the wine penetrates half way along the sidewall of the cork. despite this, the wine has not suffered from oxygen exposure while in bottle. youthful color with no browning or fading at the rim. the nose continues to be shy. acid and tannin fully resolved. luscious fruit and earthiness. very fine sediment in the last pour. although it seems as if the wine will live forever, i dare not hold it much longer. will enjoy remaining bottles on the next cold winter days or sooner if global warming persists for the next six weeks.

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  6/19/2021 - jviz wrote: 93 Points

  This was decanted for a couple hours prior to serving and held on very well. Served blind, the color was none too advanced and while notes of old library, green pepper, tobacco, and redcurrant should have had me in Pauillac, I thought this was perhaps a Pomerol with some faint green notes. Well, the next blind was and it made more sense afterward in context.
  
  One commented that the 81s have shown really well over the years, particularly from cold cellars as they have not been sold and traveled like the 82/85/86s. Perhaps it shouldn’t be thought of as an “off” year.. my sample size is small but I haven’t been disappointed by the vintage yet!

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  6/17/2021 - acyso wrote: flawed

  "Drink it while it's delicious" (Chicago, IL): Undrinkable; heat-damaged, oxidized, or something.

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  4/9/2021 - Border Boss Likes this wine: 92 Points

  Decanted 30 minutes before service. Outstanding old world bordeaux nose and palate. Don't hold any longer, but it's drinking great now.

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