Yep. On the other hand, I’ve served 1989 Meyney, Pichon Baron, Pichon Lalande and Lynch Bages to a bunch of people who like wine but are not wine geeks, and they go wild over them. There’s definitely a sweet spot where many people can appreciate aged wines that still have some youth in them.
One friend in particular has told me three years in a row that I’ve served him the best wine he’s ever had. In order those were 89 Meyney, 89 Pichon Baron, and 89 Lynch Bages. I’m not sure where to go next 
You have almost found religion. A few more years and you can come to the Saxum offline.
Seriously, I had the same response when I opened a 1966 and 1975 Gruaud last year. Academically interesting and enjoyable but hardly what I would call thrilling. Words like appreciate come to mind, but not thrilling.
I first started buying wine in the early 1980s. Some of the earliest wines I bought were 1979 Bordeauxs, where wines like Pichon Lalande and Leoville las Cases were selling for $13-15 a bottle. During the 1980s, when I was first collecting, the Bordeauxs I drank were often these 1979 Bordeauxs along with lesser 1982s like Gloria, Chasse Spleen, etc., while I kept my 1982 classified wines and let them mature. I did similar things in Burgundy where I bought some 1978s and let them mature while drinking 1979s and 1980s.
If I had to guess the recent vintage that will produce nice, mid-weight Bordeauxs that will drink kind of like the better 1979s did, it would be 2014.
I have found that most people I know who are not wine geeks but like wine like California Cabs more than anything else. If you ask them what they like in a wine, with an awful lot of people the first word is body. I was thrilled to have one friend (again far from wine geek) who really liked a Burgundy I opened for him - 2005 Rossignol-Trapet Gevrey Chambertin.
By contrast, the people I had the Bordeauxs with this weekend are very much my wine geek crowd. To a man (and woman), their favorite producer is Truchot.
89 Haut Brion?
Somehow, these experiences remind me of a happy hour at work several years ago where people brought bottles of wine to try. One older partner brought a reasonably old Bordeaux that he had been given years ago (don’t remember the wine). I got to the happy hour a bit late (work interfered) and that partner and our office manager were about ready to toss the wine as over the hill. I took one taste and recognized that all the wine needed was a few minutes to open up and then it would be very good. I enjoyed drinking it - not sure if the partner and office manager ever did but they said they did - not unusual as (and I am sure that this is the case for most of us) they did not want to disagree with me and seem less sophisticated. They don’t realize that true wine lovers never hesitate to argue with each other 
Or “smooth”. I usually interpret that to mean more lush less acid.
I agree. This reminds me of two incidents. Once, years and years ago when I was an associate, I (and I think one or two others) opened 4 bottles of BV wines at work and drank them blind with a bunch of other associates. Three were private reserves and one was Beautour, their basic wine, which at the time was a very nice inexpensive Cabernet. I thought the Beautour was easy to pick out as having less of just about everything than the three Private Reserves. Well, for about 1/3 to 1/2 the people, this was their favorite wine. It was, as you said, smooth while the three Private Reserves had tannins and needed time.
The second incident (also at work when I was a junior associate) involved Irish whiskey. I am far from an expert on any whiskey, esp. Irish whiskey, which I have hardly ever touched. The two bottles being tasted blind (it was St. Patrick’s Day) were Jamison (less expensive) and Black Bushmill (more expensive). Because I liked wine, somehow people expected me to pick the more expensive from the less expensive. I actually got it correct. The Jamison (which was the favorite of a majority of the people) was smoother and easier to drink. The Black Bush, while probably a bit harsher, had a lot more flavor. I figured based on wine experience that the more flavorful one likely was the more expensive one, not the smoother more innocuous one.
My guess is that smooth is the reason why we often hear about people (generally not wine geeks) preferring cheap wines in blind tastings over much better wines. They prefer smooth over complex and nuanced. Frankly, the rest of the world is not like all of us.
Was just having this exact discussion with two associates last night - over some whiskies of course - imparting my wisdom on them regarding Scotch over Bourbon. Then I went home to pop some vino and left them to keep billing, with their “smooth” Bourbon. Hopefully I left them with a sour taste. 
Great thread - which gave me a laugh: I remember some wine writer, probably French, waxing lyrical about the differences in national “tastes”, whereby Americans liked drinking their Bordeaux young, whereas Brits were necrophiliacs. I therefore hereby declare you all knights of the realm! Personally I tend to drink most of my Bordeaux at the 15-20 year point, but that’s mainly because unlike most of you, I only have a teeny-weeny cellar!
That is interesting because I have always read that while the Brits are necrophiliacs, it is the French who drink Bordeaux really young. Should you and I both blame the British?
Here you go 
Well most people blame us for most things, so why not?!! I should have added that I’ve always found that sort of wino stereotype to be complete rubbish!
Great stuff, Craig!
Lots of wisdom in this thread. So many moving parts… storage and provenance, bottle variation, palate preferences, changing wine styles, aging senses, following a given wine for decades vs trying it once or twice, what else? Hard to know exactly what changed.
For my own part, early experiences in wine appreciation had a lasting effect on my expectations and palate. I came of age enjoying wine in the UK in the early 90’s when wine was still cheap (compared to the last 20+ years) and even households of modest means often had a few cases of mature Bordeaux floating around. Restaurants often had lists going back into the 50’s and prices were reasonable. I got to try lots of complex, aged Bordeaux from the 70s and 80s and some from the 60s, and I was enthralled.
It was these experiences that made me love Bordeaux of a certain style, so when I started buying wine in the mid-90s when I came back to the USA (my first case purchase was the 1989 Meyney bought in 1995 at $18/bottle), I was usually let down compared to what I’d been drinking. I resolved to laying down some claret myself for future days, but it was a lonely time with only 5 year-old Bordeaux to drink (only the forward 1990 vintage carried me through these dark days). The 95s and 96s made the situation worse as serious vin garde vintages, deeply trying my patience (most of the wines I bought from those two years are still not close to peak, and some remain closed up for my mileage).
The internet came to the rescue, as I found other old world AFWE wine lovers out there to meet up with and online auction sites made backing filling easy and much cheaper than aged wine buying at retail.
Where in the US were you in the mid-90s? While 91-94 were not memorable vintages in Bordeaux, top stores in most major cities in the US still had wines from all the great and good vintages of the past 10-15 years including 1982, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1988, 1989 and 1990. Certainly, Bordeaux was not hard to find here in DC. Were prices higher then than they were in 1983 when 1982 Bordeaux futures were selling for unbelievable prices? Sure. But the prices were much cheaper than they were a few years later like when the 2000s came out.