1989 Château Léoville Barton
Community Tasting Note
aChave Likes this wine:
95 Points
Friday, July 1, 2016 - Dinner with Dan, Manette and Evan (Dan & Manette's house): Ahh, aged Bordeaux. Has the approachability and fragrance of the 1989's at this point, but also the freshness and structure of Leoville Barton. Best of both worlds. Medium weight with good combination of red and blue fruit (more red, really). Drinking well out of the bottle; didn't go downhill over 2 hours. Decant not necessary, but helped open somewhat over 30 minutes. Gorgeous wine. Classic St Julien, classic Barton. More, please.
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Comment posted by Chris@77:
12/31/2016 2:10:00 PM - I've been reading other underwhelming reviews, wondering how the bottles downrated were stored. This is the wine I drank 1+ years ago. It was spectacular and I was never an LB collector (shocked, my wine was Pichon Lalande). Since my wife doesn't drink I had to exert all my willpower not to finish the bottle!
Comment posted by aChave:
12/31/2016 3:59:00 PM - I've had one bad 1989 bottle in all of the various 1989 Bordeaux I've had... and it happened to be a Barton. Bad luck, that. Because (1) the 1989's have been uniformly very-good-to-great and (2) I am particularly fond of Leoville Barton. I'm sure you're right, those with bad experience with this particular wine have probably had bottles with either cork taint or storage issues (my one bad one clearly did, before I purchased it -- not the retailer's fault, though). I would also say that even bottles as old as 1989 benefit from air time... a lot of structured wines in that vintage in Bordeaux, and the best have miles to go. Happy New Year!