Bordeaux Wine Enthusiasts

• 1986 Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac (6/22/2009)
  This wine is brilliant. It blows away the '82, in my humble opinion. Big and beastly with thick ripe rich black currant and cassis, this is a big bad Pauillac. I can't say it quite gets to the 100+ that I have previously given the Mouton from that vintage, but it is right up there. A profound wine, it may be one of my top ten favorite wines of all time. Absolutely stunning on the nose, on the palate, with a finish that lasted over a minute. Matched with all the red meat on my plate, I was in heaven. (99 pts.)

Posted from CellarTracker

Wow that is the most enthusiastic note I have read on this wine - it was probably the most controversial wine at our 1986 tasting and it was very backward on that occasion - but there is no doubt this is destined for greatness

and we had 2 of these
Jim do you recall if you liked one better than the other ?

As I recall on the first I made sure I had the server fill yours and mine after he did the first pour for others

what a fun Beastly wine

They were both awesome, Rick, what a great night, thanks for making it all possible!

This was my favorite wine at BWE1.

stefan

He-Who-Shall-Remain-Nameless thinks it is "awesome" and scores it 96 points.

I don't have my notes, but this one made my top 4 wines of the night during the 1986 Tasting at NYC last year.

I agree. This wine was a real stunner at the ' 86 dinner.

That night we laid to rest many published proclamations of, 'death by tannins,' that had previously been associated with 1986 Bordeaux.

Shame you are not coming to the 89 dinner Steve

Wow,
I have several of these in storage.
The 86s I have treid are exclllent - Cos, Ducru, Margaux etc, and I have not tried the PL but now I am certainly looking forward to it!

I used to enjoy this wine back eight or ten years ago Mark, when it was still an infant, and it has only continued to get better. It is a fifty year wine.

In that case, I will not hurry.

I have reviewed a few other 86s here over the last year or so.
The 86 Cos is brilliant. I rated it the best Cos at a hosted tasting (with Bruno Prats) several years ago, of wines from 75 to 2000 (the latter just a sample).

The 86 Ducru is also very very good, a bit earthier than the Cos, maybe a notch behind.

The Gruaud larose is more old fashioned, burly and powerful, but not quite as classy - the rusticity of the wine is not for everyone (I recently sent my 88's to auction - a bit TOO rustic, without the depth of 86).

The 86 Margaux is one of the best wines I've ever tried, and is still tannic. I made the mistake of opening one of these 10 years ago to find a wine with a great nose yet a tannic palate - this demands time (and careful storage).

This vintage is everyhting the 75 was meant to be.
And many 86s are for my palate better than 82 in the central Medoc.

Where are the notes from our BWE '86 dinner in NY? That was before we moved to the new site - wish we could pull that stuff back up.

Just for you David:

http://bordeauxwine.org/bwe/new/1/150301/

The old forum's search can be accessed at:

http://bordeauxwine.org/bwe/swish.cgi

Thanks, Jacques - that was a nice dinner!

Paging Phil...

Can we put this link at the top of the page, under the "BWE Archive" tab, which is currently not linking to anything?

Wow, that's some review.
I have two bottles of this wine but have avoided opening them because I didn't think they were ready when I had this wine elsewhere.
I had one bottle in either 2002 or 2003 and I thought it was still tight and needed 5-10 years until optimal drinking.
Maybe now I'll reconsider.