Beschreibung:

1986 Nineteen eighty-six provided the perfect foil for the preceding vintage. While 1985 produced many balanced supple wines that were approachable in their youth and favored the merlot grape, the 86s was a massively tannic vintage where cabernet was king. A somewhat rainy damp spring was evaporated by ideally dry late spring for flowering and fruit set. This followed by an extremely hot summer and accompanying drought which very nearly stunted the grape maturation until the heavens broke on 14 September providing much needed relief. This turned out to be too much of a good thing when a rapid tempest ripped through Bordeaux on 23 September, pummeling Pomerol and St.-Emilion with at least 10cm of rain, glancing Graves and mainly sparing the Medoc. Besides geographically being focused on the right bank, this storm chronologically harmed Merlot, which of course ripens earlier. Thankfully, the freak storm was followed by wind swept sunny weather. Those chateaux that were able to delay their harvest till the second week of October were able to make devastatingly concentrated and highly structured wines. Similar wines stylistically were only seen in 1945 and 1928 in this century. While some of the right bank wines and lesser wines of the Medoc are beginning to become approachable, this is unquestionably a vintage to hold and may well improve invincible. Mouton and Lafite stand as two pillars of the vintage with Margaux not far behind. It was also a landmark year for Gruaud Larose, Cos dEstournel, and Pichon Lalande. Lafleur and Vieux Chateau Certan deserve mention from the right bank. JC Château Lafite-Rothschild--Vintage 1986 Pauillac, 1er cru classé Parcel: lots 148-149 1 dozen bottles per lot