1984 Errazuriz Don Maximiano Founder's Reserve

Community Tasting Notes (1) Avg Score: 89.5 points

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  4/21/2023 - pavel_p Likes this wine: 87 Points

  Part 3 of my little 80s Founder's Reserve discovery. I drink very little Chilean Cabs but was offered some 80s vintages of the Founder's Reserve and curious to see how these wines can age.
  Again a bottle in outstanding conditions re cork, fill and label. Just like for the 83 and 89 (see separate tasting notes), I pnp and drank over several hours. A clear garnet with very slight browning towards the rim. A leafy and herbaceous Cab with green notes. Light to medium body with resolved tannins. Fairly short but very pleasant particularly with food.
  This slightly underripe Cab fruit profile and overall quality is very similar to what you get when you open an average left bank GC in a cooler mediocre 80s vintage, like say 1981 or if you are a bit lucky and your 1987 is still alive. Clearly a solid Cab towards the end of its drinking window but not past. Hence am scratching my head upon the review of my favourite critic Neal Martin who in his very interesting 2012 Wine Advocate article on Chile rated the wine at 78 points and with that gave it the second lowest rating of 700 Chilean reds, most of them in the lower price range. If Neal had not tasted this (and also his similarly badly rated 1995) together with Chadwick himself, I would have said he must have had a bad bottle as his notes indicate a completely different wine experience (with a "bitter" palate and a "skeletal" finish). Strange. 87 or even 88 for me today.

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