January 13, 2024 - Cork was in bad shape but after a gentle decant this wine really opened up. Hard to fathom that it is 62+ years old. Beautiful nose of pepper, tea, leather, and spices. Palate a bit thin as expected but delivered some flavors of citrus (a tad sour), spices, raspberry, and chocolate. Some tannin structure remaining but not strong. Exceeded expectations!
November 19, 2023 - Mouton vs Lynch-Bages 1989, 1986, 1966 and 1961 vintages (A collector's home): Decanted for 2 hours, served single blind in a flight of 4 wines. Wine G, My 3rd ranked wine, groups 2nd. A little tired on the nose, some VA with charred bottle funk. Sweet fruit, perhaps a little bit stewed/raisined, but still quite round and inviting.
May 21, 2023 - 20 Mature Magnums (mostly Bdx, w/ Unico, Vogue Musigny, Marthas): From magnum. Three 1961 Bordeauxs side-by-side. The Lynch Bages (97pts) and the Pontet Canet (95pts) showed both exceptionally well. Highly complex, with all the telltale Pauillac tertiary aromas and a still intact sweet fruit core, high precision and purity and with superb freshness. Some points deducted as both wines had still slightly grippy tannins. The Calon Segur (90pts) showed highly complex and with an intriguing caramel core but was a bit wild and muddy with some strange notes too.
TN: Dark brooding, dense nose, so fresh with lots of minty notes. Some tobacco which gets a bit more prominent with time. On the palate this is amazing, so much freshness, velvety texture and feel, good weight and a long sweet finish. Perfectly balanced but still a bit masculine and grippy in its structural appearance. The aroma complex is very intriguing with precise notes of dark fruits, a superb sweet fruit core in general, caramel notes, herbs lots of minerality, tobacco, some hints of truffles and with time even some malty notes to die for. Easily 97pts today.
May 6, 2023 - Magnum Rarities Tasting in Zurich (Zunfthaus zur Waag, Zurich): From Magnum: Concentrated and polished with ripe and still fully present fruit. A touch of Williams. Aromas of sweet spice add plenty of youthful sexiness, especially as aging notes were only really in background. Adds more menthol-like complexity with aeration. Youthful palate with plenty of structure, bold even, and now adding a ton of leather an tobacco. This is a fabulous Lynch Bages and absolutely comparable to the stars from 1982, 1989, 1990.
May 6, 2023 - Annual Richter All-Magnum Extravaganza: Out of a pristine magnum, this was the best showing of this wine I ever was lucky to experience. Bread crust, elegant red fruit, espresso, mint, milk chocolate, perfectly mature deep and broad on the palate, finishing very long. One of the top three wines of the night
March 11, 2023 - Half. Great level. Amazing colour, really dense mid ruby. Looks in fantastic condition, but the nose reveals otherwise — full on VA. It’s all acetone, pear drop and with a little more air, cow glue. Such a shame. Imported in barrel and bottled by the merchant.
December 27, 2022 - Purchased from a very trusted merchant, this bottle was in perfect condition with a top shoulder fill and a cork which was extracted intact. It really needed an hour in the decanter to blow away any funk. It is a top notch wine and a privilege to drink, but this bottle has started its gentle downwards slope with early sherry notes appearing on the finish and nose. The nose and palate warranted another couple of points, but its over age is starting to show on the finish. The nose is divine with leather, stewed black fruits, with subtle apple, mint, and floral notes. The palate, as you would expect, is displaying full secondary and tertiary characteristics, and is silky smooth and fully integrated and with perfect balance, but surprisingly still with a good tannic feel. At this age bottle variation is always come into play, and another one could still be in its prime. However, I would recommend to be drinking this now.
August 27, 2022 - Double decanted both bottles an hour before service. Ruby core with bricking. Notes of black truffle, earth, leather, roasted fennel; hints of lead pencil and cigar box. Medium bodied, good acidity, velvety texture, and a long and focused finish. Both bottles were purchased from the original owner, and had very top shoulder fills.
May 28, 2022 - Earth with cedar and light blackberry.
January 8, 2022 - Drank in London
Quite faded, I think the bottle not the wine