88 Mouton, 86 Talbot, 66 Beychevelle, etc.

[marcs]

Went to a wine dinner with my tasting group last night and it was pretty amazing...although no thanks to me since all I contributed were a 92 and 95 Mondavi Reserve which did not show very well.

1988 Mouton Rothschild -- Very appetizing wine, balanced and poised. Some of that slightly charcoal quality mixed with cool fruit on the nose, and then on the palate cool crisp cassis that has enough fruit to be mouthfilling. Very precise and classy wine. Went back to it later and the nose in particular had relaxed some to add more of that deeper aged mellow sweetness.

1986 Talbot -- big and burly and a bit bittersweet (that is, a touch of bitterness mixed with fruit sweetness) but wow....this is so good. Cinnamon, mint, brown sugar, dirty socks...has a very typically Cabernet roughness but just soars over that roughness with the depth and quality of fruit. Just grows and grows on you. Very well aged and the fruit is no longer intense but it is beautiful and deep. Probably my WOTN against tough competition.

1966 Beychevelle -- this is a beauty. Just really had that aged gentleness, a sweet tea brown sugar quality, but also a gentle vegetal touch. Hay? Sweet grass? Light and caressing but still layered. However, that was the first taste. I went back to it later, from closer to the bottom of the bottle, and it had picked up a pronounced note of cigar ash and sourness. Don't know if that was the wine fading or it was sediment closer to the bottom of the bottle (I suspect the latter).

1982 Pichon Baron -- too much of the bitter/sour quality of aged Bordeaux without enough fruit sweetness to buffer it. A hearty wine still but the shock absorbers are gone on this one, not to my taste and the reason why I am not really a wine necrophiliac like some others.

1992 Montelena -- a pronounced note of bitter dark chocolate, a very tailored classical quality and well structured, but the chocolate lets you know you are in California. Lacks the depth to try for greatness but quite good.

1992 Mondavi Reserve -- never know whether I am judging the wine itself or the storage (I bought this on the secondary market), but this wasn't so good. The cork was soaked through and pretty shot. The wine itself had a rubbery quality to the nose and was OK on the palate but a bit bitter and shallow. Not really memorable. A shame as I got it from a store that had ten more cases at $70/bottle, but I don't think I'm going to reload.

1995 Mondavi Reserve -- This one was more interesting. I got this bottle from a guy who swore up and down that he had accessed a cellar that had been purchased on release and perfectly temperature controlled and it seems he was right. Perfect cork, and the wine itself was fruity, youthful, and intense. This wine has long been a favorite of mine, but other bottles I have had have been marked by a cool fresh quality with beautifully judged acidity and lifted fruit. This one, not so much. It was exotically fruity. Notes of good thick pasta sauce (don't laugh...ever had the kind where fresh tomatoes give it a natural sweetness?), strong incense, cinnamon, a touch of molasses. As it opened up added sweet coffee and intense green pepper all of a sudden. Not cloying or overly heavy in any way, so the acidity is there in the background, but overall feels like it is not quite in balance and the fruit does feel a bit overdone somehow. But I still really liked it, would like to return to judge it more but with all the other great wines on the table didn't get the chance.

There were only eight of us splitting all these wines and more (champagne, dessert wines, a few other bottles I didn't get to) and this night made me really regret my limited capacity for alcohol as I was having a hard time spitting. I wanted a bit more time with some bottles but was really reeling by the end of the night and had all I could handle.

[OrlandoRobert]

Wow that's quite an evening, thanks for sharing!

Those are some mighty fine, mature Bordeaux. Love love love that Talbot. And the 82, another whopper. Well, all the Cordier wines slayed it in 82, 86 and 89. If I had a time machine . . . .

[robert goulet]

Best bordeaux I have ever tasted...'82 Talbot...thanx to my Orl. brother Bobby

[DavidG]

Great lineup Marc. 1982 and 1986 Talbot are both legends. Went through a case or two of each and wish there was more in the cellar. I like your description.

Been a few years since I had a 1988 Mouton but I agree with your description there too. I still have a couple in the cellar for anniversary celebrations. Might open one in a month or two.

Mondavi Reserve was a regular 2-4 bottle buy from 1990 to 1997 or so. The 1991, 1992, and 1994 were probably my favorites but I drank them up within 10-15 years.

[AKR]

That's a lot of impressive cabernet.

[JimHow]

1986 Talbot is a near legendary BWE wine.

[AlohaArtakaHoundsong]

Why has Talbot slipped, or perhaps not kept pace, since those great 80's vintages?

[JimHow]

They didn’t slip, He Who Shall Remain Nameless just had some sort of hair across his ass about Beychrvelle, Talbot, and Gruaud Larose for about 25 years for some reason.

[marcs]

So which post-89 Talbot vintages match up to 82/86 etc.? Honest question, haven’t followed the producer.

[DavidG]

Talbot cleaned up their cellars, got rid of the Brett, and lost a bit of complexity. Similarly at Beaucastel. Still love 'em, but they’re just not quite the same as they were in the 70s and 80s.

[robert goulet]

Talbot cleaned up their cellars, got rid of the Brett, and lost a bit of complexity. Similarly at Beaucastel. Still love 'em, but they’re just not quite the same as they were in the 70s and 80s.

Clean cellars...booooooooooo

That '82 is like drinking Elk's blood

[Racer Chris]

Before 2014 I hardly knew what Bordeaux was, and I didn't keep much wine in my cellar for future drinking.
'86 Talbot, drank in 2014, changed that. I still have the empty bottle.
And now I have more than 500 bottles of Bordeaux in my cellar, 29 of them from Ch. Talbot.
The '09 and '14 are both excellent. At $45, the '14 has great QPR.

[AKR]

So which post-89 Talbot vintages match up to 82/86 etc.? Honest question, haven’t followed the producer.

I thought 1996 was one of their better ones, and drank at least a case of it over the years. 2000 was also strong, but a bigger effort.

To me, their 88, 89, and 90 should have been a little better though. I don't know what happened then.

This used to be very widely available at all the restaurants I would frequent when younger, but I don't see it so much now. (I suppose that is true for all Bordeaux now though)

[DavidG]

Not Talbot, but its stablemate Gruaud: Acker has a case of the 1986 for $199/btl. And a case of the 2002 (Jim's favorite vintage) for $79/bottle. I no longer do business with Acker, just sayin'.