Double blind from a small capped bottle (in a flight of the 88,85, & 81): Pretty nose - definite age with nice tertiary notes - some green, some tobacco, some carob some pencil lead - it’s got that beautiful elegance - aristocratic w hints of a nutty sweetness. Gentle and savory on the palate - good structure - good acid and tannins. Nutty and earthy and smooth.
Day 2: Lovely aged right bank Merlot nose - tertiary with that light marzipan and wild strawberry seeetness with soy and carob and maybe a bit of celery or tobacco. Palate is aristocratic and fine - nutty sweetness with carob and tobacco. Great balance. Finish is pure and fine carrying the wonderful flavors and genteel nature to the end. Nose - 5.5/6, Palate - 5-5.5/6, Finish - 5/6, Je ne Sais Quoi - 1.5/2 = 17-17.5/20.
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SMD at Bar-a-Thym (Bar-a-Thym, Singapore): Second time out with this wine, and it remained a really pleasing drop. Very green when it first started off, it tamed down quite quickly to show a nicely classic nose of plums, black cherries and green capsicums laced with a little wreath of cigarette smoke. With time, a nice, loamy earthiness started coming to the fore as well. Quite attractive indeed. The palate was very nice, even a bit youthful, with fine-grained, slightly powdery tannins and a good bit of 1988’s stern acidity, thus running through pure flavours of black cherries, plums and a bit of cassis, and then another lovely chew of greener notes - capsicum, cedar bark and cigarette smoke - all resolving into a nicely round finish. I really liked this. It had the classic firmness and reserve of a 1980s Pomerol, yet with a nice ripe chewiness to it. Delicious, with its best years ahead of it yet.
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A Bordeaux Deep Dive, With Proper Social Distancing; 4/11/2020-4/12/2020 (The Virtual World of Zoom): A beautiful showing. Light ruby, a touch cloudy, with bricking on the rim. Slightly affected aroma (mild VA?), but gorgeous on the palate. Fully resolved, with good concentration and notes of red and black fruit and some cedar. Ample acidity. Just a touch raisiny, suggesting this is slightly past peak.
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Wines with the HDH Auction (Spiaggia): Gorgeous aromas of cedary, bell peppery mature plum fruit with a touch of attractive band-aid. Palate is fully mature with resolved structure. A bit thin on the back end. Better nose than palate.
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HDH auction at Spiaggia (Chicago, IL): The generous gift of a Western Illinois gentleman. Initially quite dirty on the nose, and a little disconcerting but then it cleaned itself up nicely with air. Slightly plummy with some really good structure here. Classic Pomerol.
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Easter Dinner with Great Wine (New York, NY): Double blind in Pomerol flight.Big and burly with dense, black fruit. Powerful, yet well rounded. Surprisingly good and dense for the vintage.
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Last of my bottles. A good, not great showing - pretty red fruit tinged with tobacco, floral notes, cedar, and earth, but feeling a bit thinner and more tart than either of my previous bottles. The fruit fills out more with some air, but this seemed to be missing a gear compared to how this has usually shown.
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Peter's BDay (Bistro Na Pasadena): This nose smelled like pure dirt. It didn't quite reflect that on the palate, which was still deep red..but this was clearly off.
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Another fantastic bottle. There's remarkable finesse and sense of polish - there's a core of restrained red fruit accented with bright floral notes and more classic Bordeaux cedary, earthy, and other savouriness, and the palate presence is so elegant. The tannins are almost fully integrated here, and this is drinking superbly right now.
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Fantastic, classic claret that's perfectly mature and in a great place right now. This is so elegant - medium weight on the palate with lots of bright red and dark berried fruit framed by earth, cedar, violets, and tobacco, with a really polished and graceful texture. The structure here seems fully integrated, and this is drinking beautifully now.
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Light ruby with translucent rim. A lot of Cabernet Franc on the nose with that classic pepper, tea, earth combo. Still has nice plum and black cherry fruit but it is very mellow and fully mature. Nose is 93 but light body and slightly tart acidic finish brings the score down. Delicate and classic, outperforms the vintage but in the drink up quickly category unless you love a red acid beverage in 5-10 years time!
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Truffle city, with black cherries, earth and cocoa to add to the fun. Medium/full bodied, with soft, smooth textures and a mix of truffle and cherry in the finish. Fully mature, if you're sitting on some of this, drink up. It's not getting any better from here.
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Medium ruby purple. Pretty notes of plum, sweet spices, some chocolate, tobacco, licorice, also some leather and cherries, minerality too. It's medium-full bodied with beautiful balance and medium+ acidity and medium tannin with a touch of green. Overall very pretty. Good length. Like it a lot.
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Silky, refined with sleek black fruits and graphite minerals. Finishes balanced and complex. Mature but will hold. A great showing. At IB&WS 10/24/16 at Nomad.
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Working my way through a case of this wine purchased all those years ago. This was the best bottle I recall having in a while. Light red in color, this medium bodied, soft wine offers a nose of floral, cherry and truffle notes. Smooth and easy on the palate, the spicy, black raspberry and earthy notes carry through. Though this was fresher than previous bottles tasted, there is no reason to age this further.
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Wineberserkers European Tasting (Zazie's, San Francisco): Nice green bell pepper, capsicum; palate has excellent black fruit still, balanced palate, some greens; medium length finish very nice balanced bordeaux, if a bit subtle. 92-93
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Bordeaux 1988 Horizontal Tasting: Tasted blind: Clear red. Nose of red berries, coffee with hints of lovage. Nicely balanced with a good structure and plenty of power left. The wine is still sweet (Caramel) and long. Drink now over the next decade. Quite a positive surprise...
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Stinker in der Nase. Stahl usw. In der Flasche 2.5h offen. Der Wein entwickelt sich stetig mehr. Kirsche, Lakritze, Bonbon, Pflaume, Kompott, extreme Länge
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Starting to fade from its peak, with little effort, mature aromas of truffle, forest floor, cherries, earth and spice are easy to find. Soft, with a slight rustic edge to the texture, the wine finishes with sweet, red, spice cherries and hints of dark chocolate. I'm planning on drinking my remaining bottles over the next 3 - 5 years.
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This is even more than what I expected from such aged Pomerol. Still lively, don't need to wait though, but no hurry either. Frutiy merlot aroma, silky mouthfeel with long finish. A treat. Perfect with lamb filet. Squab was good as well with it.
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Very good bottle, still young. On the nose, very classical nose of evolved (but not aged) Bordeaux where leather and tobacco dominate. Palate is a real beauty, medium to high-bodied with very good mouthfeel due to the high class of the tannins. I would not hesitate to age it a bit longer to see if it can match with the 1985 which is a notch higher.
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Brick in colour with seductive aromas of earth, tobacco and leather with accents of tea leaves running alongside raisiny scents and pure cassis. So voluptuous and poised with additionary flavours of mushrooms, prune and forest floor on the palate that manage to retain their freshness and generousity.
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Double Birthday Celebration for Fiona and Me (Oversea Restaurant, Shaw Towers): A beautiful, beautiful wine - quite clearly my WOTN. Of all the Bordeaux blends on show, this had the most classically Bordelais nose - cigar, toasty tobacco and spice accents danced alongside plummy fruit and lovely florals. Wonderful stuff. Most on the table called it a left-bank - but I thought it must be a right-bank just on the nose alone (pinned wrongly to St Emilion though). The palate, if anything, was even better. Really classy, great finesse - it was a silky caress of a wine, almost lacy, delicate, with floaty cassis, plum and red fruited flavours interlaced with leather, tobacco and just lovely fresh acidity. A joy to drink. It ended as it began - classily, with a long caressing finish of sweet spices. I could down glass after glass of this. Utter seduction, and drinking incredibly well at the moment.
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Paul and Fiona birthday bash (Oversea Restaurant): Lovely elegant flowery nose. So silky, smooth, soft and gentle on the palate. Gentle on fruit, cool on the mid palate, alluring and seductive. Tobacco, slight mint and raspberries combined. Finishes with tea leaves and dried dates. Amazing and outstanding wine! I got to find more of this. WOTN without a doubt
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Trumpets and violins may have been calling Jimi's name in the distance, but truffles and violets were looking for me in this delicious, mature Pomerol. Further complicating matters, chocolate, earth, plums, coco, coffee, blackberry and leather that reminded me of an old baseball mitt. Soft, lush, round, opulent chocolate covered black plums felt smooth on your palate. This elegant wine finished with more chocolate, plum, cherry and strawberry jam sensations. This is fully mature, but well stored examples should deliver this much pleasure for at least 3-5 more years.
This is bottle number 6 from an original case. The previous bottle was not at this level. But this bottle of Pomerol was beautiful.
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nose - mushrooms,musty, and some cherry. Several in the group picked it out at being corked, though not I. Mouth of an aged wine - musty with muted fruit. The solid tannins overpowered the fruit flavor (and for me possible the corkiness as well). Overall some interesting secondary flavors and a lively discussion about whether corked or not (without consensus) but unbalanced.
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The character changed every 30-45 minutes in a good way. 1988 is more aggressive, more power than the classic 1989. Did I say because of the vintage character ? It is what you like...if drink only 1 glass of 1988, may be you get the best part of it...lucky you. Anyway, this 1988 inspires my imagination. Drink the whole bottle of 1988 slowly...then it takes you along the amazing way so nice. However I prefer the 1990 and 1989, actually.
Drink now - 2013..................91+/100....................
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nose - minerals, strawberry, and fresh stream or brook. Tasted next to a '71 Haut Brion so not entirely fair. Mouth - kaboom acidity -wowsers. Still very fresh fruit with tannins to back up.
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Dark red with some browning at the rim and a brown hue. The bouquet revealed notes of ink and dairy products. Medium bodied with a good attack, precise structure and good definition. The flavour impression was quite minerally with a vitamin pill like quality to it. But underneath, above, and surrounding the minerality was a very nice tea and herbal like character, coupled with some notes of bitter dark chocolate. Balanced aftertaste. 90 points
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Dark ruby red with noticeable fading around the rim. Pleasant aromas of blackberry, licorice, wood and coffee. Full HUGE body, with massive concentration which truly blew me away. The aromas were reasonable, but wow the taste and feeling this wine offers is outstanding. Wonderful perfect balance, with well-integrated and soft tannins, and very nice acidity. Loads of toasted oak, which are a major part of the wine’s flavor offering. I am normally not a big fan of such levels of oak, but in this case, it was truly very well integrated and really added a lot to the overall feel and structure. Very rich flavors, including fresh meet, pepper, some plums and more (and maybe a touch of chocolate). Huge finish, with a spectacular addicting aftertaste. Overall It is a powerful, complex, and very tasty red wine with loads of personality. I was actually very surprised, as I did not expect to like it so much (was not a big fan of Merlot till now..). A wine I have truly fallen in love with.
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12/15/2022 - Seth Rosenberg Likes this wine: 94 Points
Double blind from a small capped bottle (in a flight of the 88,85, & 81): Pretty nose - definite age with nice tertiary notes - some green, some tobacco, some carob some pencil lead - it’s got that beautiful elegance - aristocratic w hints of a nutty sweetness. Gentle and savory on the palate - good structure - good acid and tannins. Nutty and earthy and smooth.
Day 2: Lovely aged right bank Merlot nose - tertiary with that light marzipan and wild strawberry seeetness with soy and carob and maybe a bit of celery or tobacco. Palate is aristocratic and fine - nutty sweetness with carob and tobacco. Great balance. Finish is pure and fine carrying the wonderful flavors and genteel nature to the end. Nose - 5.5/6, Palate - 5-5.5/6, Finish - 5/6, Je ne Sais Quoi - 1.5/2 = 17-17.5/20.
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2/16/2021 - Paul S wrote: 93 Points
SMD at Bar-a-Thym (Bar-a-Thym, Singapore): Second time out with this wine, and it remained a really pleasing drop. Very green when it first started off, it tamed down quite quickly to show a nicely classic nose of plums, black cherries and green capsicums laced with a little wreath of cigarette smoke. With time, a nice, loamy earthiness started coming to the fore as well. Quite attractive indeed. The palate was very nice, even a bit youthful, with fine-grained, slightly powdery tannins and a good bit of 1988’s stern acidity, thus running through pure flavours of black cherries, plums and a bit of cassis, and then another lovely chew of greener notes - capsicum, cedar bark and cigarette smoke - all resolving into a nicely round finish. I really liked this. It had the classic firmness and reserve of a 1980s Pomerol, yet with a nice ripe chewiness to it. Delicious, with its best years ahead of it yet.
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4/12/2020 - JonnyG Likes this wine: 92 Points
A Bordeaux Deep Dive, With Proper Social Distancing; 4/11/2020-4/12/2020 (The Virtual World of Zoom): A beautiful showing. Light ruby, a touch cloudy, with bricking on the rim. Slightly affected aroma (mild VA?), but gorgeous on the palate. Fully resolved, with good concentration and notes of red and black fruit and some cedar. Ample acidity. Just a touch raisiny, suggesting this is slightly past peak.
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2/29/2020 - Nanda wrote: 91 Points
Wines with the HDH Auction (Spiaggia): Gorgeous aromas of cedary, bell peppery mature plum fruit with a touch of attractive band-aid. Palate is fully mature with resolved structure. A bit thin on the back end. Better nose than palate.
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2/29/2020 - acyso wrote: 93 Points
HDH auction at Spiaggia (Chicago, IL): The generous gift of a Western Illinois gentleman. Initially quite dirty on the nose, and a little disconcerting but then it cleaned itself up nicely with air. Slightly plummy with some really good structure here. Classic Pomerol.
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8/9/2019 - Vindicator Likes this wine:
Just singing tonight.
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4/21/2019 - Burgundy Al wrote: 91 Points
Easter Dinner with Great Wine (New York, NY): Double blind in Pomerol flight.Big and burly with dense, black fruit. Powerful, yet well rounded. Surprisingly good and dense for the vintage.
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2/1/2019 - salil wrote: 90 Points
Last of my bottles. A good, not great showing - pretty red fruit tinged with tobacco, floral notes, cedar, and earth, but feeling a bit thinner and more tart than either of my previous bottles. The fruit fills out more with some air, but this seemed to be missing a gear compared to how this has usually shown.
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1/12/2019 - Aravind Asok wrote: flawed
Peter's BDay (Bistro Na Pasadena): This nose smelled like pure dirt. It didn't quite reflect that on the palate, which was still deep red..but this was clearly off.
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11/16/2018 - Lype wrote: 91 Points
Nice round and opulent red berries which I often associate with Merlot, a very good wine, drinking well.
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3/30/2018 - salil wrote: 93 Points
Another fantastic bottle. There's remarkable finesse and sense of polish - there's a core of restrained red fruit accented with bright floral notes and more classic Bordeaux cedary, earthy, and other savouriness, and the palate presence is so elegant. The tannins are almost fully integrated here, and this is drinking superbly right now.
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2/24/2018 - salil wrote: 93 Points
Fantastic, classic claret that's perfectly mature and in a great place right now. This is so elegant - medium weight on the palate with lots of bright red and dark berried fruit framed by earth, cedar, violets, and tobacco, with a really polished and graceful texture. The structure here seems fully integrated, and this is drinking beautifully now.
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10/7/2017 - dchain Likes this wine: 91 Points
Light ruby with translucent rim. A lot of Cabernet Franc on the nose with that classic pepper, tea, earth combo. Still has nice plum and black cherry fruit but it is very mellow and fully mature. Nose is 93 but light body and slightly tart acidic finish brings the score down. Delicate and classic, outperforms the vintage but in the drink up quickly category unless you love a red acid beverage in 5-10 years time!
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4/30/2017 - Jeff Leve wrote: 93 Points
Truffle city, with black cherries, earth and cocoa to add to the fun. Medium/full bodied, with soft, smooth textures and a mix of truffle and cherry in the finish. Fully mature, if you're sitting on some of this, drink up. It's not getting any better from here.
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12/24/2016 - NostraBacchus Likes this wine: 92 Points
Medium ruby purple. Pretty notes of plum, sweet spices, some chocolate, tobacco, licorice, also some leather and cherries, minerality too. It's medium-full bodied with beautiful balance and medium+ acidity and medium tannin with a touch of green. Overall very pretty. Good length. Like it a lot.
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10/25/2016 - dream Likes this wine: 93 Points
Silky, refined with sleek black fruits and graphite minerals. Finishes balanced and complex. Mature but will hold. A great showing. At IB&WS 10/24/16 at Nomad.
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3/19/2016 - FrancoisD Likes this wine: 91 Points
Aromes: framboise, chocolat, argile
Un peubleger et sans definition claire
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7/2/2015 - Jeff Leve wrote: 92 Points
Working my way through a case of this wine purchased all those years ago. This was the best bottle I recall having in a while. Light red in color, this medium bodied, soft wine offers a nose of floral, cherry and truffle notes. Smooth and easy on the palate, the spicy, black raspberry and earthy notes carry through. Though this was fresher than previous bottles tasted, there is no reason to age this further.
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5/18/2015 - aagrawal wrote: 92 Points
Wineberserkers European Tasting (Zazie's, San Francisco): Nice green bell pepper, capsicum; palate has excellent black fruit still, balanced palate, some greens; medium length finish very nice balanced bordeaux, if a bit subtle. 92-93
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6/7/2014 - Wine_lvr Likes this wine: 93 Points
Bordeaux 1988 Horizontal Tasting: Tasted blind: Clear red. Nose of red berries, coffee with hints of lovage. Nicely balanced with a good structure and plenty of power left. The wine is still sweet (Caramel) and long. Drink now over the next decade. Quite a positive surprise...
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4/6/2014 - Wein Auslesen Likes this wine: 93 Points
Stinker in der Nase. Stahl usw. In der Flasche 2.5h offen. Der Wein entwickelt sich stetig mehr. Kirsche, Lakritze, Bonbon, Pflaume, Kompott, extreme Länge
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11/20/2013 - kstoddard wrote: flawed
Blind Night (Rick): Corked and oxidized
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8/31/2013 - Jeff Leve wrote: 91 Points
Starting to fade from its peak, with little effort, mature aromas of truffle, forest floor, cherries, earth and spice are easy to find. Soft, with a slight rustic edge to the texture, the wine finishes with sweet, red, spice cherries and hints of dark chocolate. I'm planning on drinking my remaining bottles over the next 3 - 5 years.
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8/8/2013 - Pierre-Yves wrote: 94 Points
This is even more than what I expected from such aged Pomerol. Still lively, don't need to wait though, but no hurry either. Frutiy merlot aroma, silky mouthfeel with long finish. A treat. Perfect with lamb filet. Squab was good as well with it.
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3/1/2013 - Thracian Alvarinho wrote: 90 Points
This is at the peak now. Very soft and sweet. No hard edges. Drinking nicely.
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2/3/2013 - passingshot Likes this wine: 92 Points
Very pleasant. Smell of truffle, forest floor, leather, dark chocolat, and earth. Silky tannin, moderate finish. This wine is on its peak.
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12/31/2011 - thomasito2001 Likes this wine: 93 Points
Very good bottle, still young. On the nose, very classical nose of evolved (but not aged) Bordeaux where leather and tobacco dominate. Palate is a real beauty, medium to high-bodied with very good mouthfeel due to the high class of the tannins. I would not hesitate to age it a bit longer to see if it can match with the 1985 which is a notch higher.
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10/29/2011 - Umay Ceviker wrote: 92 Points
Brick in colour with seductive aromas of earth, tobacco and leather with accents of tea leaves running alongside raisiny scents and pure cassis. So voluptuous and poised with additionary flavours of mushrooms, prune and forest floor on the palate that manage to retain their freshness and generousity.
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4/5/2011 - Alex H wrote: 89 Points
Paul and Fiona combined bday celebrations; 4/3/2011-4/5/2011 (Overseas restaurant): Silky floral sensual wine with smooth palate. Soft and beautifully smooth. Ripe but elegant and voluptuous.Peaking !
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4/2/2011 - Paul S wrote: 94 Points
Double Birthday Celebration for Fiona and Me (Oversea Restaurant, Shaw Towers): A beautiful, beautiful wine - quite clearly my WOTN. Of all the Bordeaux blends on show, this had the most classically Bordelais nose - cigar, toasty tobacco and spice accents danced alongside plummy fruit and lovely florals. Wonderful stuff. Most on the table called it a left-bank - but I thought it must be a right-bank just on the nose alone (pinned wrongly to St Emilion though). The palate, if anything, was even better. Really classy, great finesse - it was a silky caress of a wine, almost lacy, delicate, with floaty cassis, plum and red fruited flavours interlaced with leather, tobacco and just lovely fresh acidity. A joy to drink. It ended as it began - classily, with a long caressing finish of sweet spices. I could down glass after glass of this. Utter seduction, and drinking incredibly well at the moment.
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4/2/2011 - Mingmong wrote: 95 Points
Paul and Fiona birthday bash (Oversea Restaurant): Lovely elegant flowery nose. So silky, smooth, soft and gentle on the palate. Gentle on fruit, cool on the mid palate, alluring and seductive. Tobacco, slight mint and raspberries combined. Finishes with tea leaves and dried dates. Amazing and outstanding wine! I got to find more of this. WOTN without a doubt
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10/11/2010 - IAMVLAD wrote: flawed
CORKED.
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8/15/2010 - Jeff Leve wrote: 94 Points
Trumpets and violins may have been calling Jimi's name in the distance, but truffles and violets were looking for me in this delicious, mature Pomerol. Further complicating matters, chocolate, earth, plums, coco, coffee, blackberry and leather that reminded me of an old baseball mitt. Soft, lush, round, opulent chocolate covered black plums felt smooth on your palate. This elegant wine finished with more chocolate, plum, cherry and strawberry jam sensations. This is fully mature, but well stored examples should deliver this much pleasure for at least 3-5 more years.
This is bottle number 6 from an original case. The previous bottle was not at this level. But this bottle of Pomerol was beautiful.
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8/15/2010 - IAMVLAD wrote: 91 Points
very nice. layered, reasonably complex, got better in the glass. most of the 1988s seem to be drinking right now.
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9/4/2009 - soyhead wrote: 86 Points
nose - mushrooms,musty, and some cherry. Several in the group picked it out at being corked, though not I. Mouth of an aged wine - musty with muted fruit. The solid tannins overpowered the fruit flavor (and for me possible the corkiness as well). Overall some interesting secondary flavors and a lively discussion about whether corked or not (without consensus) but unbalanced.
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8/27/2009 - noppakit s. wrote: 92 Points
The character changed every 30-45 minutes in a good way. 1988 is more aggressive, more power than the classic 1989.
Did I say because of the vintage character ?
It is what you like...if drink only 1 glass of 1988, may be you get the best part of it...lucky you.
Anyway, this 1988 inspires my imagination.
Drink the whole bottle of 1988 slowly...then it takes you along the amazing way so nice.
However I prefer the 1990 and 1989, actually.
Drink now - 2013..................91+/100....................
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1/19/2009 - boutrosdan wrote: 83 Points
broken down. could not compare to 97 Insignia which made all the Certan's flaws come to light.
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10/16/2008 - soyhead wrote: 91 Points
nose - minerals, strawberry, and fresh stream or brook. Tasted next to a '71 Haut Brion so not entirely fair. Mouth - kaboom acidity -wowsers. Still very fresh fruit with tannins to back up.
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10/17/2004 - Joe Belmaati wrote: 90 Points
Dark red with some browning at the rim and a brown hue. The bouquet revealed notes of ink and dairy products. Medium bodied with a good attack, precise structure and good definition. The flavour impression was quite minerally with a vitamin pill like quality to it. But underneath, above, and surrounding the minerality was a very nice tea and herbal like character, coupled with some notes of bitter dark chocolate. Balanced aftertaste.
90 points
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4/24/2004 - Lorien wrote: 96 Points
Dark ruby red with noticeable fading around the rim. Pleasant aromas of blackberry, licorice, wood and coffee. Full HUGE body, with massive concentration which truly blew me away. The aromas were reasonable, but wow the taste and feeling this wine offers is outstanding. Wonderful perfect balance, with well-integrated and soft tannins, and very nice acidity. Loads of toasted oak, which are a major part of the wine’s flavor offering. I am normally not a big fan of such levels of oak, but in this case, it was truly very well integrated and really added a lot to the overall feel and structure. Very rich flavors, including fresh meet, pepper, some plums and more (and maybe a touch of chocolate). Huge finish, with a spectacular addicting aftertaste. Overall It is a powerful, complex, and very tasty red wine with loads of personality. I was actually very surprised, as I did not expect to like it so much (was not a big fan of Merlot till now..). A wine I have truly fallen in love with.
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12/1/2003 - winefool wrote: 92 Points
Very nice, typical right bank bordeaux. Forward aromas, plummy fruit on the palate. Drinking perfectly. 12/31/03
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