Blind Showdown: 95 v 96 Bordeaux

Eight hardy souls gathered in midtown Manhattan last Friday night for a 95 vs 96 Bordeaux show down. We assembled both the 95 and 96 from 8 chateau, paired them, bagged them, numbered them as pairs in random order, and then served them blind to both the vintage and chateau. Going into this, Vegas had the 1996s as prohibitive favorites given the fame of the northern Medoc in that vintage. Scuttlebutt that the 95 Medocs were coming on strong in recent years prompted this tasting. The showdown was very educational indeed.

My top 3 wines were (in order): the 1995 Pichon Lalande, the 1996 Ducru and the 1995 Cos. Other than the corked wines, only the 95 Calon Segur stuck out to me as a notable downgrade next to its flightmate. The quality overall was very, very high and I was pleasantly surprised how well the 95’s showed (on my personal score card, the 95s came out slightly ahead). Finally, these wines are just starting to drink well, but they are still too young for prime time in my book. Give them 10 years and then watch out. Fun that we preferred the 96 Magdelaine to the 95.

Here’s how the voting for the blind flights went (we tasted in descending order):
8A 1 vote (1995 Calon Segur)
8B 7 votes (1996 Calon Segur) * I preferred the 96

7A 2 votes (1995 Grand Puy Lacoste) *I preferred the 95
7B 2 votes (1996 Grand Puy Lacoste)
tied 4 votes

6A 5 votes (1996 Magdelaine) *I preferred the 96
6B 1 vote (1995 Magdelaine)
tied 2 votes

5A (1995 Pichon Lalande)
5B CORKED, no voting (1996 Pichon Lalande)

4A 7 votes (1995 Cos d’Estournel) *I preferred the 95
4B 1 vote (1996 Cos d’Estournel)
tied 1 vote

3A 7 votes (1996 Ducru Beaucaillou) *I preferred the 96
3B 1 vote (1995 Ducru Beaucaillou)

2A CORKED, no voting (1996 Pichon Baron) – very slightly corked
2B (1995 Pichon Baron)

1A 3 votes (1995 Leoville Poyferre) *I preferred the 95
1B 4 votes (1996 Leoville Poyferre)
tied 1 vote

Flight Totals
1995 won 1 flight
1996 won 3 flights
Two flights were tied (I called the Poyferre flights a tie).

Had the 95 Grand Puy Lacoste myself on Saturday night. A touch of brett but otherwise classic pauillac and drinking nicely.

Too bad the '96 Pichon was corked. That is a lovely bottle of wine.

I had the 96 Pichon Lalande a week earlier and it was tremendous. As good as the 95 Lalande was this night, I think a clean bottle of the 96 would have bested it…

I slightly preferred the 95 GPL to the 96 this night, but the 96 has improved a lot in the last few years.

Sounds great. So sorry I had to miss this but we’ve been having a generally good time in London so I can’t really complain.

In 2005, I arranged a similar comparison tasting at the Plaza Hotel.
Andy Raffle loved one particular wine…which turned out to be a
a Long Island red which Charles Massoud of Paumonok Vineyards
kindly provided to me as a ringer.

Patrick, I agree with your take on this, although I preferred the 1996 Poyferre over its counterpart. The palate on the 1995 Poyferre had a candied aspect that I didn’t care for. Only the 1995 Calon Segur came up empty - not showing anything on the nose, and a leafiness on the palate. Otherwise, there was great fruit and structure in the other wines.

While I have been opening some 1996s over the past couple of years, I just started opening a couple of 1995s over the past couple of months, and the tannins in the 1995s are softening while retaining good fruit, and I am becoming a fan of the vintage. Yes, these wines will likely improve in the coming years, but there is pleasure in drinking them now if you can spare a couple, and a couple of hours in the decanter.

The biggest surprise was the preference for a 1996 St. Emilion over its 1995 partner!

Thanks for putting up the scorecard - it gave a better overview than my notes.

Thanks Patrick for doing a better job of keeping track of which vintage than I did in my notes!

1999 Taittinger Comtes de Champagne
Another good showing of a fave, fullbodied yet with a sense of lightness, very fresh, clean Bosc pear with brioche, citrus peel, and chalky accents. Good length. A-

1999 Carbonnieux blanc
Fresh fruit with an interesting waxy note but oak pretty dominant, and good use a little more acidic grip. B

2010 Jadot (Magenta) “La Garenne” Puligny-Montrachet
This seemed a bit tight when I first had, but I really liked on a revisit. Apple and citrus deftly accented by light oak touches. Very good acids, bright and young. A-/B+

2009 Zind-Humbrecht “Clos st Urbain” Gewurztraminer
This was a 3 (midpoint) on the ZH scale- plenty of sugar (modern Spatlese/old style Auslese levels), A bit ponderous for my tastes. I think I liked a sip as afterwards a bit more, but my initial note says B-

On to the pairings. Wines were paired but blind. Patrick paired and wrapped them, and then Ramon numbered pairs. So they also didn’t know what was in each flight.

8A More tannic than B, young, a little herbal note, good. B 95CS
8B Redder fruit, cigarbox, very good,. A-/B+ 96 CS


7A Cassis, graphite, brawny. B/B+ 95 GPL
7B Also blackcurrant, cedar, similar but maybe a bit more restrained.B/B+ 96 GPL

6A Soft texture, black fruits, pretty open. B+ 96 Magdelaine
6B Redder fruits, quite tannic, needs time. B 95 Magdelaine

5A Lovely, my fave so far, elegant and long with a lot of stuffing. A- 95 PL
5B So corked I couldn’t get my face to glass! 96PL


4A Lush, balanced, fruit framed by some nice minty herbal notes (I was thinking this was Pichon Lalande)A- 95 Cos
4B Firm, young, maybe most in need of time. B+/B for now 96 Cos

3 A Good, balanced, nice finish. B+/A- 96 Ducru
3B Big, full, lush fruit with lots of, tobacco. A-/B+ 95 Ducru

2A Black fruit, pencil lead, an odd note- eventually conclude mildly corked 96 PB
2B Full, red and black fruits, pencil lead. B+ 95 PB

1A Somewhat kirschy, medium bodied, sweet. B+/B 95 LeoP
1B Very good, more open than some, cassis with tobacco and cedar shavings. A-/B+ 96 Leo P

Deleted.

A very fun and instructional evening, enjoyed it quite a bit. On the whole it seems I preferred the 1995 wines and would probably put the 95 Cos, 95 Ducru and 95 Pichon Lalande near the top of my wines of the night. That said, I was struck by the compactness of the quality range, no real clunkers in my book. I did not get the sense that any of these wines were “dumb” nor that they were in any danger of falling off what should prove lengthy drinking plateaus. Thank you for the invite.

Thanks for the notes, gents. Glad to see that some of the '95’s are coming around. I have more '95 PLL than any other Bordeaux so it may be time to check on one.

Thanks,
Ed

Maybe Magdelaine is less representative of the vintage differences than the more typical right bank?

Nice notes, and bummer that some key examples sounded off according to these notes.

It sounds like the consensus, blind, is to still prefer the 96 Medocs although the 95’s are no slouches?

That’s better luck than I’ve had in the last few years with 95 left banks!

Interesting. I would have expected more of a sweep for the 96s.

Two corked bottles out of 16. Ouch!

Thanks for the notes and sorry I missed it. How was the food?

The food was fine (good crab cake, mediocre pasta, solid steak), but you can get better for the prices they charge. The real benefit of Fabio’s is they waive corkage for us, they are centrally located, and they have a semi private room good for tastings.

Two corked bottles was pretty brutal, though the Baron was borderline drinkable. I decanted the Pichon Lalande for an hour around 3:30 that day, and it smelled great. Go figure.

I agree that Magdelaine is a good candidate to go against the grain in right bank vintage generalizations, but it was surprisingly good. I’d not have sought that vintage out before this tasting. Also, it didn’t stick out as Right Bank stylistically either, I don’t think anyone successfully called it blind.

5 years ago I would have expected '96s to crush '95s, but a couple of '95 tastings last year showed they were coming around. This was pretty close, though slight edge to '96.

I think almost all of the wines were double-decanted (with a bit of time in decanters) in afternoon. We had a late cancellation/substitution and Ramon had an emergency delivery of the '96 Cos (to replace LLC flight) so that was a late decant.

I’d say 80s/90s Bordeaux probably runs at least 5% TCA so 12.5% corked is bad luck but probably still on hump of the bell curve. But sorry I missed the TCA on the 96 Baron as I had a backup (it was faint, we took a while to agree);

Food- good crab cake, acceptable calamari, good burrata with icecold tomato. Pastas were mediocre (big portions, about twice what they had done in past when we got a trio). My chicken breast was moist, good porcini sauce. It’s not the kind of food I’d take my wife out for, but no corkage/secluded table on a weekend night is almost impossible, so I was happy enough. But place was half-filled on a weekend in April, and they told us Fabio had passed away. So not sure how long it will continue to be an option.

I guess if the food was great, it wouldn’t be an option. I can’t even remember what I had the last time I was there when Arv was in town. I’ve had a few '96 Ducrus in recent times and they’ve all been good.

My experience usually has '96s overpowering '95s in side-by-side tastings, but I generally find '95s more pleasant to drink when having just one bottle. I have suspected for a long time that they’d eventually prove themselves more intriguing than '96s in the side-by-side context as well.

Thanks to the earlier good notes by Patrick and Dale, as well as the equally important chime-ins by the other attendees. As if you have not had enough, here are more tasting notes and scores:

Flight #8 Chateau Calon Segur (Group preferred 1996 7-1) :
8a. 1995 - Tannic, subdued bouquet. B
8b. 1996 – Expressive nose, ripe, sweet. B+

Flight #7 Chateau Grand Puy Lacoste (Group preferred tied at 2-2 with the rest preferring vintages equally)
7a. 1995 - High Acidity and more accessible. Elegant. A-
7b. 1996 –Classic nose. Also accessible but slightly bigger than 1995. A-

Flight #6 Chateau Magdelaine (Group preferred 1996 5-1)
6a. 1996 – Ripe, sweet berries, balanced. I heard Saint-Julien in some areas of the table. B+
6b. 1995 – Good bouquet, tannic. B

Flight #5 Pichon Lalande (Group preferred 1995 since 1996 was corked)
5a. 1995 - Young. Feminine and elegant. Silky. B+
5b. 1996 – Corked.

Flight #4 Chateau Cos d’Estournel (My favorite flight with Group preferred 1995 7-1)
4a. 1995 - Classic nose and finesse. Very long. Great showing. My personal WOTN. A
4b. 1996 – Cigar and leather in complex nose with similar level of complexity in flavor. A-

Flight #3 Chateau Ducru Beaucaillou (Group preferred 1996 7-1)
3a. 1996 – Lush black and blue berries. A big wine that’s well balanced. B++
3b. 1995 – Slight harshness that contrasted with 1996. Some liqueur, but the overall structure was still pleasing. B+

Flight #2 Chateau Pichon Baron (Group preferred 1995)
2a. 1996 – Corked.
2b. 1995 – Big, tannic wine. Accessible and inviting to sip. B+

Flight #1 Chateau Leoville Poyferre (Group preferred 1996 4-3)
1a. 1995 – Delicously fleshy, sweet. B+
1b. 1996 – Ripe, OK balance, but a little clipped on the finish. B

I didn’t take notes on the whites, but especially liked the 1999 Taittinger Comtes and the 2010 Jadot Puligny “La Garenne”. Also had a 1999 ch. Carbonnieux Blanc (good) and a 2009 Zind-Humbrecht Gewurztraminer “Cols St Urbain”.

An enjoyable night of blind tasting while having dinner with a fun and generous group and learning their thoughts on 2 fine Bordeaux vintages. As always, it was fun to have Patrick come over to drink with, and experience our traditional post-dinner cleansing ales with whisky shots at the nearby local Irish bar.