There were different versions? I’m confused.
By far ‘86 Lafite.
1959 Haut-Brion. A 60th birthday bitter disappointment.
Yes, and this is quite common. Until the 20th century, almost all wines were bottled directly from the barrel, foudre or tank. Blending a large number of barrels to make a homogeneous cuvée requires pumps and large blending tanks—from a technical perspective, not so easy without modern equipment. And to this day you will have multiple bottlings of many, many wines that carry the same label. In Chablis, for example, many producers did two or even three bottlings of their huge 2018 crop, with the first bottling in many cases coming in February the year after the vintage—whereas the last bottling might see another 10 months or more on the lees. As for Jaboulet, I think it was quite typical for there to be different bottlings for different importers (my experience has been that the Malmaison bottlings for Clive Coates in the UK were the best in the era when that label was extant). And in the 1990 vintage, the variation is quite flagrant: I have had some great bottles, and also some that were very flat and roasted.
Incidentally, a friend ran numbers on the US bottling of 1990 La Chapelle recently: it’s 13.64% alcohol, pH 3.38 and TA of 0.63. Looking at the numbers alone one would assume that it was heavily acid-adjusted. And when, for context, one considers that most Gentaz Côte Rôtie were below 11.5%, it is clear that the 1990 La Chapelle was at least on the cusp of overripeness.
For me, even the best bottles of the 1990 are ultimately not on the level of the 1978, 1972 or 1961, or indeed even some of the less-celebrated vintages such as 1982 (from a cold cellar). But it took me a few years and quite a few bottles to come to that point of view.
1982 Margaux. Had it a couple years ago and it was quite faded and dull, perhaps I overestimated its longevity
Every bottle of Keller I have ever tasted.
A corked Lafon Meursault Desiree a long time ago when I was very young and really couldn’t afford it. I was so upset.
Hmm, probably a 20 or so year old Yquem. Also a Bereche Champagne.
Every 2009 Bordeaux I have had except Montrose.
That’s funny. I love 1990 LLC but 1990 La Chapelle is also my most disappointing hyped wine. I’ve had it from four bottles, one corked, one heat damaged, one just not very good, and finally one good one - but still not as interesting to me as other good vintages of La Chapelle.
1990 Margaux. Didn’t have any obvious flaws, but certainly didn’t need to live up to the fantastic CellarTracker reviews and paled in comparison to a bottle of 1991 Montelena poured at the same tasting.
To be fair, I’ve only had the Margaux once and it wasn’t my bottle, so I can’t vouch for how it was handled prior to purchase. I do know that it was stored in a temperature and humidity controlled cellar after purchase.
1991 Montelena is a fabulous wine that would best a lot of Bordeauxs.
1990 Beauséjour, one of the more famous 100pt Parker calls. Absolute garbage, soupy mess in my view, but always could have been a bad bottle. More worryingly I suppose, lots of reports of variability with this wine.
A lot of 1982 BDX are pretty boring these days. Long been overpriced and overvalued.
Early on in my wine odyssey, I splurged and purchased 4 bottles of 1999 Pavie. The first bottle of this I drank was wonderful. The second bottle I took to a restaurant to have Christmas Eve dinner with my son. I was stoked to showoff my great bottle of wine and my new hobby to my son… Well you guessed it, the bottle was mediocre at best. No good wines, only good bottles.
07 Rayas comes to mind.
2007 Clos des Papes 4-5 years ago was the nail in the Parker coffin for me. Pruney and cracked up over the course of dinner
Over the past year I was let down by a 1990 Taittinger Comtes which I carried all the way to Hong Kong in my luggage only to find it disjointed and seemingly less than the sum of its parts. Ditto a 1990 Pol Roger SWC. Both auction bottles so maybe storage takes the blame, or travel shock…
I am immensely Jel of this experience… I would really, really enjoy a wine evening with very old Bordeaux, fist fights, and Parker-chaos. I’m sad the Cheval didn’t blow you away, but man, what a night!
I had this in November for my birthday and it was spectacular; proper bottles are aging fine, imho.
1986 Yquem that was not well stored.
A maderized 1989 Collina Rionda Riserva from Bruno Giacosa…