1996 Château Cos d'Estournel

Community Tasting Notes (654) Avg Score: 93.3 points

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  4/24/2024 - zimmy07 Likes this wine: 95 Points

  This is on point! Popped cork and the perfume from the bottle was instant. violets poped on the nose. On the palate cedar, pencil shaving, gritty tannin and blue fruits. In perfect balance. I am not sure this will get better, it will hold for aonther 10+ years easy, but not sure it will improve. This was so damn good!!!!

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  4/13/2024 - MikePemulis Likes this wine: 93 Points

  This was really good immediately after decanting with noticeable fruit still present. The fruit faded after 30 minutes or so leaving a more mature Bordeaux profile. Enjoyable throughout with the first phase my favorite.

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  4/13/2024 - Rani Likes this wine: 92 Points

  Tasted blind. Notes of black fruit, burnt rubber, dried herbs and sous bois. Quite restrained and lovely, but not as good as previous bottles I’ve had.

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  3/30/2024 - englishman's claret wrote: 94 Points

  It’s a real pleasure to revisit the 1996 Cos d’Estournel. I’m sure I’ve tasted it in the interim, but my last note on this was in 2012. Over the past 12 years, this has retained almost every element of the character I last found, full of plum and blueberry compote, clay, lavender, cedar, cigar, espresso, and intense pencil. The palate is slightly less generously fruited, showing more beef blood and cumin. This takes half an hour to get going and then after an hour of pleasure Brettanomyces starts to dominate. Yet it’s still a wine relatively early in its evolution, mellowing, losing (a little) heft and cultivating some finesse, underlining the reassuringly slow glide of great claret across time.

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  3/14/2024 - djdaqm Likes this wine: 97 Points

  About twenty years ago, when I was newly getting into wine, I went to a Christie's pre-auction tasting at the Jonathan Club in Los Angeles. There I was introduced and fell in love with my first tastes of old first growth Bordeaux, like Lafitte and Haut Brion. This Cos took me right back there from the second I smelled it--scents of autumn leaves, tobacco, pencil shavings, and cedar. I really enjoyed this and it reminded me why and what good aged Bordeaux can be. It gradually changed but didn't diminish over the evening, with its long after taste, earthy secondary flavors, complexity, nicely integrated tannins with plenty more life left for further aging, and beautiful balance.

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