Jay Kline

9.3

Presented to me, double-blind. The wine pours a deep garnet color with an opaque core; medium viscosity with moderate staining of the tears, and some signs of light sediment. On the nose, the wine is vinous with a mix of ripe and desiccated, mostly dark fruits: cassis, black cherry, plum, mixed brambles, old leather, pipe tobacco, pencil shavings, and fine baking spices. On the palate, the wine is dry with medium+ tannin (that is mostly integrated) and medium+ acid. Confirming the notes from the nose. The finish is long.

Initial conclusions: this could be a Cabernet-based Bordeaux blend, Tempranillo (or based blend) or Grenache-based blend from France, Spain or the United States. I feel like this leans more towards its fruit than its structure, even though it is a fairly well balanced wine in both regards. As a result, I am calling this a Cabernet-based Bordeaux blend from the United States, California, Napa Valley, Howell Mountain from a producer like Dunn, 2006. Shiiiiiit. To be honest, I’m not terribly surprised since this is Cos and from a warm vintage no less. Drinking well now and should through 2050+. — 7 months ago

Jay Kline

9.3

Served alongside beef short rib, xo sauce, pickled mustard seed, cumin stir-fried asparagus. Yes, the 2003 Dominus is big. However, it is also balanced and showing classic Napa typicity with beautifully ripe and some slightly wizened black and red fruit, tobacco, cocoa, some purple flowers and baking spices. I found this to be quite balanced after all the air it saw. Wonderful structure for continued aging as well. Drink now through 2043. — 2 years ago

John Malcolm

9.8

Fabulous. Paired with lobster. Fresh and refreshing. Right up there with Cristal and Pol Roger Winston Churchill as my favorite champagne. — 3 years ago

Dennis Gastineau

9.6

2001 in Nov 2019 with old friends. Lovely full, deep texture, had it before a salmon dinner and really served as an appetizer, so complete and satisfying. Slight cinnamon with absolutely no edge. — 7 years ago

Ryan Vento

9.2

Really enjoying this bottle. Very feminine and delicate, highly expressive and balanced. Tobacco leaf, licorice, clove, eucalyptus, plums, blackberries, winter spices, and dark chocolate. Integrated tannins with a nice plush acidity. Rating may increase as this was tasted initially as a PnP. — 7 years ago

with Krystal

Chris England

9.4

Top year 904 @ £75 that was drank in Zalto burg glass as its like an aged burgundy

🐽 Paired w/ Iberian Ham 😍

🍷 Garnet ruby w/ brick

👃 Smoked burnt oak, soggy earthy leaves, leather, dark cherry & figs w/ balsamic & damson

👄 Med body of creamy stewed cherry w/ earthy balsamic & slight mocha

🎯 Med finish of above w/ earthy balsamic linger

Reaching peak but I preferred the 95 904 over this but the 890 94 was better than the 95! — 9 years ago

Jason Jarvis

8.9

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

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

George Yasutake

9.3

Dark purple nectar as I poured into my wine decanter. The wine did not disappoint. Drank wine over 4 hours over a Christmas Eve dinner. . — 7 months ago

with Michael

Andrew Cullimore

9.1

Slightly lighter garnet core , lighter terracotta rim . Quite muted on the nose , quite herbal and spiced notes, some red plum and floral sous bois , black tea . After a while this opens up slightly , showing a bit more detail , but never jumps out and grabs your attention as other bottles have. On the palate this is better , with the roundness and slightly sweet , red plum , summer fruits , sous bois and lightly herbal , grafite tinged , saline finish of reasonable length . Quite refreshing acidity and suave tannins . On this basis drink now and over the next few years. However , there are better bottles out there . This was disappointing compared with other bottles I’ve had , though the palate was more sound and it wasn’t flawed. A bit of a perplexing bottle. — 9 months ago

Tony Chen

9.1

It’s not bad, but if compare this to Stags Leap, Stags Leap definitely beat this as the same vintage. — 6 years ago

Keith Lite

9.5

A big bold plumy purple bomb As dense and luscious as a wine can get in a glass. Decanted for 2 hrs and its still a baby with blackberry, dark chocolate licorice and pepper on the nose and on the palate. A long long finish and loads of tannins to sum it all up — 7 years ago

with Bruce

Delectable Wine

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9.7

The 1990 Cristal is remarkable. Polished, nuanced and light on its feet, the 1990 is all class. Citrus, orchard fruit and floral notes are wonderfully lifted throughout. A slight reductive note adds character on the finely knit finish. I can’t think of a better way to start this tasting. Simply put, the 1990 is a total rock star. Moreover, it is much more delicate than most wines from this ripe vintage. Amazingly, the 1990 tastes like it is still not ready! “Nineteen ninety was my second vintage here,” says Chef de Caves Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon. “It was ideal. The fruit was just perfect. We blocked the malolactic fermentation completely and only fermented 6-7% of our lots in oak, as opposed to the more typical 20%, in order to preserve as much freshness as possible. The wine was made by my predecessor, Michel Pansu, but I was learning. This was the first year I started working with oxygen by reducing sulfites in vinification to pre-oxidize the Chardonnay musts, as I do know, which allows me to get rid of all the unstable, oxidative compounds. With Pinot, on the other hand, you need a little bit of sulfur at crush or you lose the brilliant fruit. (Antonio Galloni, Vinous, December 2018) — 8 years ago

David Annis

9.3

Cork disintegrated, but otherwise no concerns. Very restrained with more fruit showing as it took on air. Looking forward to seeing how the rest of the bottles age. — 10 years ago

Yves Padovani

9.1

A unique opportunity to drink this 1995 dom vintage! It was very unique. Light bubbles, almond aromas. Light gold color, not as powerful as expected. It was time to drink eat... — 10 years ago

Nick Davis

9.3

Thought it was Condrieu. Elegant! — 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! — 12 years ago

Helen Arvanitopoulos

9.0

Had the 2016 after I had the 2015. 2015 was exceptional. 2016 much darker red fruits. Loved it as it was opening uo more. Delish — 7 months ago

GaryWEdwards

9.7

At 25 years, patience rewarded in this now delightful vintage. No hurry here as this juice is a long distance runner with at another 40 years to enjoy. — 9 months ago

Alessandro Dalle Carbonare

9.8

So elegant Montrose. It builds up an epic journey in the aftertaste. Rich and opulent as usual but with a fine touch of incredible level.
Softer extraction resulted on a fruitier, more sapid and rounder wine than usual. It feels it’s going to be approachable in its youth. — 2 years ago

Greg Gosselin

9.3

Sold Caymus as a wholesaler in the late 90’s finishing up a grad degree at UofWisconsin-Madison. Invested in a case of the stellar 94 vintage. Still on its game. — 5 years ago

Shay A

9.6

Last night’s “Evening With Krug” event, where they officially released their 2006 vintage. Beautiful evening with many different Krug offerings paired with a delicious meal.

The reason for the occasion. Loved trying this next to the ‘04 as they are completely different beasts at the moment. This is strutting Krug’s classic style of round, rich and opulent profile. The warm vintage has this totally open for business now, but obviously only getting better. Bakers yeast, toffee, and lemon pastry aromatics. Very fresh and inviting on the palate revealing golden caramel dipped apples, honeysuckle and nougat. Delicious. — 7 years ago

with Jason, joe and 3 others

Nick H

9.5

Excellent Northern Rhône tasting through J.L. Chave’s 1989, 1990, 1999, 2004, 2009 Hermitage, as well as the 2014 St. Joseph. ‘90 and ‘09 were my noted favorites. — 7 years ago

with Eric and Andrew

Kate Whitney

9.2

Drinking with some serious wine lovers in Westchester. This one rocks as hard as the crust across the top. — 9 years ago

Martin.Wang

9.0

Vintage 1986. not good as LLC from same application — 10 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