April 5, 2024 - unerwartet dünn, wenig Kraft, kaum Fleisch
April 30, 2023 - Wow, what a surprise for this vintage.
March 26, 2023 - From such a mediocre vintage this was surprisingly good. Perhaps a bit simple, but has all the attractive cedar and tobacco notes, with some black fruit still clinging on. Very enjoyable.
September 29, 2021 - Robe rouge très sombre, nez de sous-bois, bouche moins complexe que le nez mais avec une belle persistence. Très bon, pas sûr qu'il s'améliore avec le temps.
September 4, 2021 - From MG. Drunk over 3 h. Cork only a bit soaked, pulled out, but crumbled into two pieces. PnP. Nice nose. Only medium/ light bodied. With time and air it got much better. Not really typical, strong and masculin Pauillac. The Lilian-Ladouys 1995 we had then (to the cheese) was superior but, of course, with less fruit. Price tag in 2021-02: 80€, so PQR not really breathtaking.
May 29, 2021 - Last of a dozen bought on release, decanted for about 2 hours.
This bottle didn't seem to have lost as much fruit as the one I noted in Jan 2020. Reasonably deep colour still, browning at the edges. Superb Pauillac nose with strong tobacco notes. Balanced and fresh on the palate, still reasonably fruity, and with a lingering, complex aftertaste. Classic stuff.
A worthy finish to the dozen bottles I originally purchased, which gave a lot of pleasure over the period we have been drinking them. Still, I would recommend drinking up any you have reasonably soon, this wine is not going to get better, and may be drying out.
February 6, 2021 - I found another bottle in the cellar. On the basis of our last bottle we gave the wine 5h to open after decanting (fantastic fruit on the nose during decantiing). It still had hints of ‘medicinal’ flavours at first but these soon passed. It was good with sirloin steak etc. and showed good fruit, spice, complexity, and balance. I found it more austere than the last (excellent) bottle but my wife loved it. Bottle variation? Age? Who knows. We are moving on to the 2005.
December 11, 2020 - Definitely benefits from a lot of time in the decanter, this starts off lightweight but fills out quite a bit. Some mature black fruit and pencil lead with a savoury medium finish, precisely what you’d expect from a batailley. This is obviously in its twilight years and isn’t worth keeping longer but it is modest and relaxed, like an old dog sleeping by the fire. 91
December 5, 2020 - Last bottle. 5h after decanting, it was soft and attractive with all the positives in my last note. Blackberries and plums on the early palate with a short-lived hint of eucalyptus. Once again, it was very fine with a rare sirloin steak. Later, it showed more dark cherries on the mid/end palate. It was still developing as we finished the bottle.
The ‘drink by’ dates are too pessimistic if the wine has been stored well. Classy. Sorry we don’t have more. Moving on to the 2005....
April 20, 2020 - Deep- ruby-crimson.
Classic bouquet of graphite, pencil shavings, cassia and dried blackcurrant. As wine opens, there is more woodsmoke, cedarwood and dried earth.
Fairly full-bodied, the texture is fine-grained but with a Yorkie-bar gutsiness/solidity to it. A lively citrus acid with a cool earth feel to it on the mid-palate sprinkled with cocoa powder. Good depth of flavour but falls away quickly on the finish. Some firmer, almost sinewy tannins build towards the finish.