Jason Jarvis

8.9

Highly structured as they say. Nose very pleasant. Tastes like raspberry bush root salad. — 10 years ago

Nick Davis

9.3

Thought it was Condrieu. Elegant! — 11 years ago

Paul Einbund

Wine Director/Sommelier Frances

9.0

Tight and young but perfect as evah — 12 years ago

Mark Gunning

9.2

Classic Musar complexity on the nose. Not as tannic as the 2005 and a bit more approachable than the last vintage. Lots of black fruits. Still lots of ageing potential. — 12 years ago

Flavio Menezes

9.0

Very powerful, extracted. Will still improve, as it took over an hour to open up. Good with food, but I clearly see why I drink less and less Bordeaux. — 10 years ago

Carl Steefel

9.8

Informal gathering to drink some Bordeaux varietal bottles with steak.

1986 Cheval Blanc: This one showed suspect ullage, to the point where it had been hard to flip it. And in the end, it did turn out to be a controversial wine--was the orgasm 40 days, or was it 36 days? Hard to say... An extraordinary wine, classic in its own way, with fragrant dark flower and black cassis aromas wafting from the glass, and maybe more importantly for us, exploding in the mouth. Some of the more ordinary adjectives, like "smooth" and "balanced", are accurate enough, but obviously don't do this one justice. One could do a fluid dynamical description of the time evolution of this wine in the mouth, a broad attack that gave way in about 3 seconds to a sensation of acceleration and flaring across the entire breadth of the palate as the wine detonated, an oenological version of a jet... And then a persistent finish where the inner mouth perfume resonates as it fades slowly (or simply moved off to some parallel universe). — 11 years ago

Michael Petrozzella

9.6

Fantastic, as always. — 12 years ago

George Chen

9.4

Neck fill and good cork. Immediate nose of cedar, anise, of course eucalyptus and even some hibiscus. It's deep in the glass and core was still tight, even bit tannic and firm acids. This vintage is drinking better now than the legendary 74's as some of that bigger vintage is falling apart. A real beauty! — 11 years ago

Anthony Lombardi

9.4

2002 vintage which has been a maligned Rioja vintage. This is the perfect example of producer being the trump card. Excellent as always! — 11 years ago

David Beckwith

Partner/Wine Advisor Grand Cru Wine Consulting

9.9

About as good as it gets! Pristine bottle. — 13 years ago