Before getting to the ugly details of how bad it was, I need to say why I don't think it was flawed. Reason #1: Typically, flawed wine has either stripped / absent fruit, some obvious issue like intense brett or VA, or at least a clear structural problem. This had plenty of robust fruit, felt correct, it just tasted like crap. Reason #2: I had two bottles with fairly similar impressions (see below). Reason #3: A well-known critic had similar impressions to me tasting close to release (see below).
Anyway, without further ado, 1999 Leoville Barton: Perfect cork and fill. Robust and fruity palate, but nose absent and the flavors were very flat, bland, and sour. Opened up more to the point where it clearly wasn't corked, very full mid-palate, but it tasted so bad that you wished it was corked. A flat, thick, wine with a slight aftertaste of prune. Flavors of cheap burned coffee and a touch of something metallic. The combination of thickness/heaviness and bland but sour and unpleasant flavors gave a slight sensation of drinking mud.
Second bottle: had another bottle partially out of disbelief at how bad the first one was. The main difference was this one had an decent if not great nose, had a nice "grape sorbet" fruit intensity to it. But this somewhat nice impression from the nose disappeared as soon as you drank it, as the palate was extremely similar to my recollection of the first bottle. Slightly grating tannins, heavy and non-harmonious palate (again almost "muddy" in a weird way) with a forced quality and a pronounced bitter-sour midpalate. A heavy flat finish which is long but not in a way you would like -- that cheap burnt coffee flavor really lasts.
Adding to my sense that these were authentic and correct bottles, I looked up John Gilman's tasting note on this wine. For those of you who don't know (and I didn't until I started looking this up), Gilman considers LB one of the worst major left bank chateau (he rated the 2009 79 points). Here is his TN on the 1999, written in 2007:
Written 14 years ago, that is astoundingly accurate to the wine I drank. I even made the "mud" reference independently in my own TN before reading this, as well as the sense of something scorched or burnt. Hmmmm. I have a lot of LB in my collection, and have really liked the 2004 LB. I may have to check some of the other vintages to see if they are anything like this.I used to be a serious fan of Leoville-Barton, as wines like the 1983, 1985 and 1986 struck me as sophisticated and classic examples of St. Julien. Not so this remarkably poor and “suped-up” 1999 Barton, which has gone about as far over to the dark side as any French wine from good terroir could possibly go. The modern and predictably excessive nose is a blur of overripe fruit tones redolent of scorched cassis, prunes, tobacco, damp earth and of course, plenty of new oak. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and completely dull, with low acids, a hint of soil that is almost mud, and a dead, flat and woody finish. This really sucks
