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First let me clear up the non-controversial matter. Everyone agrees that in 1985 the right bank did much better than 1986, though 1986 Le Pin, Ausone, Cheval Blanc and Figeac are outstanding and, Lafleur quite incredible. Now we come to the controversial part where I find myself in an extremely small minority. Most people think 1986 is "great". I don't agree. I think 1985 is much better in comparison. I will tell you why. From the first time I tasted the 1986 it consistently showed excessive acidity (or low pH if one wants to put it that way). In my notes the word "searing acidity" appears often in describing the wines from this vintage. Over the last thirteen years or so the acidity has continued to dominate and that is a bad sign, because it means that eventually the fruit will dry out before the wine reaches its true potential. On the other hand, the 1985 is perfectly balanced, very round and enjoyable to drink now, even though it is still developing. And it will remain enjoyable to drink for a very long time as it ages and as it becomes more complex. Those of us who have drunk a fair amount of 1953s (see the next article) would say that 1985 is almost a clone of it. Much is said about 1985 being not very long lived. But I know that all the 1953s were drinking beautifully at least until the mid-1980s, showing no signs of being tired (and many are still lovely to drink). That is a span of at least 30 years ! A few months ago I had, at my friend Daniel Ovadia's birthday, a magnum of 1953 Margaux. It was absolutely spectacular. At least thirty years in bottles, and fifty or more years in magnums does not exactly make it a short-lived wine ! In that period of time ordinary human beings finish all their education, embark on their profession, some even become millionaires and a few retire as well! They will never agree that theirs should be called a short span of life. So I get very irritated whenever people talk about 1985- almost a replica of 1953- as being short-lived. The wine is perfectly balanced, it is drinking beautifully now and will continue to be drinking beautifully for at least another 15- 20 years in bottles and then magnums. On the other hand 1986 is getting leaner. Some time ago I participated in a tasting of 40 odd wines I encouraged my collector friend Frank Komorowski to organize to compare the two vintages. The 86s with, very few exceptions, turned out to be tougher and drier. And then, in the hopes of settling this controversy I have, each year, for the last 5 years or so, done a comparison of 1985 and 1986 Ch. Lafite, both excellent wines, at Chateau Lafite. This year Charles Chevalier, Lafite's wine maker and manager, while tasting the two admitted that the 1985 had great richness and "warmth", as he put it, and was a very complex wine. He admitted also that the 1986 was very lean but he excused it by saying that it was so because " it is still too young". It will be "great" someday, he predicted. Well, I have more grey hair than he does and they were developed waiting for just such promises from other wines and vintages that were never fulfilled! The classic example is 1966 which at one time was acclaimed as the logical inheritor of the great 1961. But does anyone hear about this vintage today ? I recently did an extensive tasting of 1966. Apart from a few wines like Latour, Palmer and Haut Brion most have dried out under the spell of the still predominant acidity. In Bordeaux it is sacrilegious to say anything negative about 1986 vis-à-vis 1985. Every time I mention this subject I get a puzzled look . You could almost hear them in the back of their minds saying " He is a nice guy but he's gone crazy about this!" So I ask them bluntly if we could taste the two vintages side by side at lunch or dinner or wherever. After tasting the two they agree, every time, that 1985 is round and beautiful, and 1986 is unusually tough and lean. And then I ask them their prognosis about the two vintages. They change the subject! There is nothing wrong with a wine having a huge amount of acidity or tannins, if there is enough concentration of fruit to balance it. The key word is BALANCE. For example, consider the great vintage of 1961, which I was tasting in the mid-seventies when it was around 13 years old, the same age as 1986 is now. It was PLENTY TOUGH then but you could literally feel the fruit underneath. As time went on the 61s developed into some of the most beautiful wines one could ever drink. Ch. Lafleur is a classic example of a wine that traditionally has an enormous amount of tannins and acidity, but in great vintages you can sense an equally enormous amount of fruit lurking in the background. In each example the underlying reason behind the greatness is balance between the major components of the wines. I learned a long time ago to make sure and gauge the concentration of fruit in wines, particularly in wines like this. Or, on the opposite end, make sure that there is enough backbone of acidity if the wine seems dominated by fruit. The key word here, once again, is BALANCE. So is there nothing good in 1986 ? Certainly wines like Lafite , Mouton Rothschild, Leoville Lascases and a few others will eventually pull through as outstanding wines. Many others will be, well, "nice" wines and that's about it. But no one will give them the kind of huge scores they received early on. Almost all the high scoring 1986s will find their scores lowered in time As I said before, most wine writers (and most Bordelais) think 1986 is really a great vintage. Except, I just recently discovered, Michael Brodbent. In his Great Vintage Wine Book II he gives 1986 4-stars, and 1985 a higher rating, 5-stars. And what does he say about the two vintages ? Well, you'll have to read it yourself. All I can say is that, without the two of us having ever spoken about this subject to each other, it is remarkable how much our thinking has been alike. So who made good wines in 1985 ? ALMOST EVERYONE ! Among the first growths, I've recently had Lafite, Mouton Rothschild, Haut Brion and Cheval Blanc which have all shown spectacularly. Others recently tried were Leoville Lascases, Lynch Bages, Cos d'Estournel, Pichon Lalande and Figeac, with the same results. And L'Evangile was totally extraordinary. It is difficult to exclude anyone, even many of the cru Bourgeois, in 1985. Having compared the 1985 to 1953, the comparison that comes to my mind for 1986, as far as looking at two vintages side by side is concerned, is 1952. The two are not completely alike by any means but 1952 was also a very hard vintage where most wines on the left bank eventually turned out to be just fair, even though Mouton Rothschild did quite well (on the right bank it was a different story with many spectacular wines. See the following article). Some 1952s lasted longer than 1953 but they never achieved the heights of sheer charm and joy that the 1953s provided. My point here was to compare 1985 with 1986. However, some of the greatest wines in the eighties or for that matter in the last four decades still are the first growths of 1982, particularly Lafite, Latour, Mouton Rothschild, Margaux, Cheval Blanc and Ausone (for Haut Brion and Petrus the honor goes to 1989). But here again there were many failures in 1982, for a variety of reasons, even among some of the wellknown chateaux and the "super seconds". There were extremely few failures in 1985. So if you wanted to arbitrarily pick a chateau for a pleasurable wine the chances are excellent that a 1985 will do the job for you. |