The greatest lamb dish I can recall was Triomphe’s coriander rubbed Rack of Lamb with Foie Gras stuffed prunes, in a port sauce. I seem to recall getting that every time we did a BDX themed dinner there back in the olden days.
What a lovely spectrum of wines to choose from.
Ok going with the GL. Decanting advice? These have been up for a week.
I told you the answer to this question a week ago. 
Do post notes, Maureen. Hard to go wrong. Late response, but I would be very interested in trying the 86 and 90 Rauzan Segla together for a vintage comparison. Same for the GL, of course.
I would decant for an hour. ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Open 5-6 h in advance - and decant 30 min. before serving …
I have had a number of these wines - 82 Gruaud Larose, 86 Rauzan Segla, 86 Pichon Lalande,86 Pape Clement and 89 LLC - and they have all been excellent or better. I will submit a dissenting note to a compare and contrast theme. I find that Bordeauxs, esp. of this age, tend toward very similar flavor profiles. They will tend toward better or worse, but not have the differences in flavor profile that drinking two Burgundies of that age would have. I would take two wines of one producer and do a mini-vertical.
Excellent price. I paid a higher price - $126 a case from Calvert Woodley.
Thems fightin werds, old man!
That’s an interesting observation and I don’t disagree. Though, older Right Bank will be different than older Left Bank and older Graves will be different than older St. Estephe. At some point, the vintage and general area tend to come through more than the producer. It will be interesting to see how true this holds with the more modern wines that started to be produced in ~1998 or so.
As a counterpoint though, (because I love to argue with myself) there are some producers that are distinctive enough where, even when older, can be distinguished from their counterparts. A couple that come to mind are la Mission and Pichon Lalande. You definitely would not confuse 1986 PLL with 1986 Pape Clement. They are very different wines. Even 1989 LLC and 1989 PLL should be distinguished from each other – though maybe not to the same degree.
Erroneous post…
It really looks like you disagreed … and I do too. The original assertion that older Bordeaux having similar flavor profiles is too narrow a view.
Let me pile on. Agree to disagree. Also disagree if you add ten, twenty, thirty years, …, to the age of the wines.
I went with the pair of Gruaud. No trace of brett that i could detect. Not sure why as I have certainly detected it in other bottles of Gruaud. Of course, I have owned these bottles since release and I have always had good storage.
Anyway, the 82 was much open on the nose, at least initially; you could smell the structure on the ‘86 (they were opened and decanted about 90 minutes prior to consumption - initially still at cellar temp and so needed warming up). I actually preferred the ‘86 once it opened a bit, but then, as a burgundy drinker, I like structure. Judging from the way my friends were drinking I think they preferred the ‘82 - but all of us agreed both were delicious. They were served with the rack of lamb, which I managed to serve rare-medium rare, a saute of four kinds of mushrooms, romanesco with brown butter and small potatoes roasted in duck fatperfect 750 of ‘86 Climens.
The best way to fight this out would be with open bottles of older Bordeaux.
The Climens was with the lamb?
Somehow my post got truncated. The climens was served with pecan cookies I made