1988 Château Angélus

Community Tasting Notes (43) Avg Score: 90.8 points

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  7/7/2023 - Triforwine Likes this wine: 93 Points

  Full house now the night before my dad's funeral. Mixed barbeque. Met my niece's fiancee for the first time. Wife and daughter arrived. Dinner split by me needing to go pick up cousins at airport.
  
  Decided on vertical of Angelus with '88 in 750mg format and '82 (which I had never tried) in Magnum (we had two, so decided to open one).
  
  Clearly, both have age. Quite different characteristics. Both required a bit of time to blow off the funk. I preferred the '82 and my sister preferred the '88 but both were outstanding and both seemed to improve but the '88 was gone pretty fast so I didn't taste it when I got back. The last drop of the '82 was fabulous. Both show their age and should be drank ASAP but probably can stay at this level for a lot longer. Having tasted the '88 before, expect bottle variation. I'm sure the '82 would have been better a decade ago but it was a real treat and another testimony to the amazing cellaring my dad did as he bought all of these wines and was meticulous about his cellar since release of all of them.

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  7/4/2022 - sdwineguru Likes this wine: 92 Points

  Well-aged St. Emilion Grand Cru 1988 Chateau Angelus. Bottle in excellent shape. Good fill, decent cork (used the Durand). Decanted. Pale ruby, amber edges, a little viscosity (12.5 alc.); complex red and black fruit, leather, cedar, dry leaves nose; soft acids; low-medium tannins; low-mid depth; balanced; mid-long red fruit and wood finish; faded fast, though. Past its prime. 16.5 UC Davis scale, 91-92 other scales.

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  11/28/2021 - Cailles wrote: 93 Points

  20 Vintages of Angelus (1988-2015): All wines tasted single blind. A few observations and conclusions: It seems that until more recently, Angelus focused on late picking, big wines with too much extraction. Most pre 2004 wines we tasted did not show well and are drying out or already have. The younger vintages showed better but only time will tell if the 2004 to 2015 vintages will age more gracefully. An experienced Angelus collector mentioned a style shift towards more finesse right after the promotion to Premier Grand Cru Classe A with the 2012 vintage. It would have been great to include more of the recent vintages (we had only 09/10/14/15) to better understand when and to what extent that shift happened. Still, there are some very good wines with the 2010 being the WOTN (rated 96+ pts, the structuredness, freshness and purity of the vintage shines through), narrowly ahead of the 2008 (96pts, these 2008 right banks are singing these days and are incredibly fresh) as well as two wines with 95 pts, the 2005 (slightly closed but lots of complexity and no structural deficits) and the 2015 (showcasing the stylistic shift: there aren’t many 2015s out there that share the light- and airiness and perfect ripeness level and purity with their respective 2010 counterparts).
  
  TN: Medium+ Expressive nose with luxurious ripe dark fruit, finely integrated toasted oak, herbs and minerality. Quite round and inviting with medium+ Precision. On the palate this has good weight from start to finish with fine tannins (probably just a very little touch drying towards the end) and good freshness. Fine dark red fruit, fresh and candied and ripe, some floral notes, herbs, and minerality. Good length and balance. Easily drinking on a 93 pts level.

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  11/22/2021 - sirpat00 wrote: 88 Points

  Angélus vertical (Fribourg): Angélus vertical of 20 vintages. Main observations were : 1/ Older vintages before the mid-2000s often suffered from drying tannin and showed a lot of extraction, 2/ Younger vintages quickly benefited from aeration hence decanting advised, 3/ the fruit profile became darker over time 4/ best vintage to drink today: 2004. All wines were directly poured with no prior decant and served in flights of 4.
  
  Tasting note:
  The colour on this was already quite faded. Earth, leather and mushrooms, a bit of ripe cherry and plum. Also foliage and sous-bois. Pretty mature profile. Still fresh on the palate, but with an acidity overhang at first that leads into a very tannic finish. Aromatically rather thin and clearly showing the age.

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  6/20/2020 - Triforwine Likes this wine: 91 Points

  This is one of two bottles in my cellar that came from my father's cellar. The wine has been stored very well. There are several more in his cellar. Opened for Father's day in his honor but in his absence. Bottle in perfect condition with mid-neck fill. Cork removed with Durand and with about 1/3 of it moist but completely intact. Can still read most of the info on the cork. Quite a lot of sediment in this bottle. Decanted with filter into caraffe and a glass poured immediately. First off, color very nice, surprisingly youthful looking ruby/garnet with a dark cherry core color and just a hint of amber/orange at the rim. Medium bodied appearance and flavor. Initial overpowering nose with must, slightly metallic and funk but clearly not flawed. This blew off over about an hour. The wine was drunk from approximately 2-4 hours after decant with some heavy mix of asian food which included some mushrooms and pasta and some heavier fish elements with which it paired very nicely. Once the funk blew off, this was a lovely old wine, likely drinking at peak considering the vintage. I recall drinking this about 3 years ago (with my dad and others all of whom found it excellent then) and this bottle was quite similar. The mouthfeel is medium bodied and the palate is one of mainly secondary and tertiary flavors with still some mild funkiness but the pleasant kind, then definitely smoke, truffle, mushroom dominate. There is just enough fruit in the background to balance things, mostly dried red fruit profile as opposed to the 1986 which we drank about a year or so ago which seemed more blue fruit laden. Clearly not the stellar wine that the 1990 is (I've never tried the famous 1989) but really a great 32 year old wine with perfect provenance in what i believe the experts call a B+ vintage. The finish is lovely with just enough grip though the tannins seem fully resolved the fruit and the earthier flavors lingering for a good 15-20 seconds so I think this wine will be good for another 5-10 years but there seems to be no reason to wait as this seems fully mature, and likely nearing the end of its drinking window given the relatively small amount of residual fruit. I think it's very important to let this one breath for at least an hour unless you just adore that funk, it's much more fun to drink when that blows off. I'm guessing this wine is relatively low in alcohol percentage at this point which is good because you can enjoy more of it before the senses become dulled. You really have to love subtlety to get this wine but I do. 91

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