TN: Ch. Haut Brion 1995

Opened with some neighbor friends.

Uncorked, poured a taste, then let sit for about 70 minutes while we tasted a 2014 Ch. Montelena Chard and 2012 Ch. Montelena CS.

Color still fairly primary. It had a delicious appealing complex nose of red and black cassis, tea, graphite, smoke, black tea, hibiscus, coffee, and after a bit in the glass that Haut Brion warm red earth. So really kind of a stereotypical description, but for good reason.

I had last tasted this wine about six years ago and then it was much more tannic and youthful, still not ready. Now it is youthful but not too early to open and enjoy.

Once tasted the flavors mirrored what was on the nose, with the addition of some darker soil notes to go with the HB warm red earth.

The other nuance that appeared while tasting was a realization that the entire beautiful complexity of the wine, while certainly broad and of First Growth quality, did have a bit of a foursquare, bound-in-on-itself quality, and by that I mean that fine, fine that it was, it may never totally unwind into a true glorious (thunderous) masterpiece; its essential elements, so fine by themselves and well-knit as a whole, may never rise to one of the historic great wines. Like an offspring of a truly great thoroughbred with plenty of fine attributes and potential to win many high-end races, but never quite at the Triple Crown level, or a genius that makes many discoveries but not at the Noble level - so something like 94-96 if you’re thinking numbers.

Despite this one note of caution, to have this wine as a house wine or daily drinker would be an incredible privilege.

Karl, I fully agree with your note. My thoughts are that what you describe is the vintage characteristic of 1995 Bordeaux.

I am glad for your comment, because it helps me think more broadly about the vintage and I would agree, with the caveat that my experience in this vintage is almost entirely on the Left Bank side.

Is that your experience in the Right Bank side, too?

Thank you for a great TN Karl. I am a big fan of 1995 Bordeaux, with Haut-Brion one of the shining stars among the handful I have tasted.

I too resonate with your comment on the future, and wanted to ask something to see if we are thinking the same thing.

With many 1995s, there is- to my palate- a certain reticence that is not present in other high quality mid-weight years like 1985 and 1988. Sort of a step beyond understatement to the point where a certain degree of nuance seems as though it may never emerge.

To give a physical example- imagine a fern leaf opening, a large and glorious fern leaf, and the very tip of the frond remains curled at the end- and you wonder if it will fully unfurl.

Does it sound like we are speaking of the same thing? If so, I personally am unsure if it will ever happen. It certainly could- and 1995 has certainly delivered on much of its early promise- but I do not feel confident in stating that the final step towards true greatness is a sure thing in the next 10-15 years.

What were vintages of similar character to 1995 that people whose experience goes back decades can attest to having ultimately fulfilled or failed to fulfill their promise? (Putting aside the fallacy of labeling and characterizing an entire vintage.)

Since 1995 was the current release when I started buying wine, I can’t track an earlier vintage since release. I could only guess.

But I would not write off their potential like many people eventually wrote off 1975 or 1986 as too hard by age 22. (That’s a whole other topic.). Or even doubted the potential of a vintage like 1983.

I’m in the happy camp with the 1995 vintage, given where they are at this point. Again, I don’t have the crystal ball to see where they’ll be headed, but so did many others who didn’t like the directions of the 1975s and the 1986s at the same age.

On relatively recent experiences, Right Bank wines that I can recall, including L’Evangile, Cheval Blanc, Figeac and Trotanoy have all performed well. Left Banks in GPL, Sociando, Cos d’Estournel have out-performed their respective 1996 counterpart in a blind tasting that I was a part of.

Our local Bordeaux group recently had a Haut Brion vertical back in October at Vaucluse here in NYC. Although, I found the 1995 to be more open and a little better than the TN above, it was not a standout considering the over-performance of the brilliant wines in 1989, 1990, and 2000. Even the 1985 and 1988 out-classed the 1995 during the dinner.

To be honest, I don’t think anyone who has previously written off 1986 should be considered wrong. Even at 30 years of age, you still have many wines that are still not quite there in terms of knitting themselves together, and to use the description Tom did, I think there remains reasonable doubt that they will ever get there.

I still have high hopes that the '86 Gruaud Larose will eventually come together like the '82 did, but wines like the Montrose or Domaine de Chevalier are already in a spot where the tannic finish on the wine is starting to overwhelm the receding fruit, so at this point you’d have to conclude that wines like that will never be truly balanced.

So while I have enjoyed wines from the vintage, with the benefit of 30 years of hindsight, it’s hard not to conclude that the vintage was initially overrated.

Good question. I’m enough of an old fart to be able to offer some comparisons. I tasted oodles of Bordeauxs every year for a decade or so starting in 1983. But the caveat is that my interests shifted elsewhere in the 1990s and I never tasted that widely among the '95s.

I wouldn’t in any way compare 1995 to 1975 or 1986 because the latter were each years with very hard tannins. In fact, 1986 had the highest recorded tannin levels since measurements were first taken in the 1940s. Wines from both '75 and '86 were chalky in the mouth at many points. (I tasted the '86s in Bordeaux in 1998 and I thought they had the depth to be great eventually. The verdict is still out 30 years on…)

To my palate, the '95s were always just a little lacking in depth/fruit concentration – just a tad short on ripeness and richness (and I tend to like somewhat less ripe years). I don’t recall any '95s that were as brutally tannic as '75s were into the '90s or many '86s were in the 2000s and 2010s. I only bought a few '95s (long since consumed) because of their seemingly thin middle palates.

The 1981 vintage is the comparison that comes to my mind for '95, and maybe 1979. But the best wines of those years were more charming than any '95 I’ve had.

All the positive comments on '95s here recently make me think I should revisit the vintage, though it will have to be from someone else’s cellar!

There’s no comparison to 1983. I don’t know where this idea arose that '83 was a middling or poor year. Neal Mollen assumed that in a recent post, as well. It was excellent in Margaux, Graves and the Right Bank. The wines from Pauillac and St. Estephe did not show nearly as well, at least in the early years, and I think that hurt the vintage’s repution. (Full disclosure: Clive Coates in his Bordeaux book and Jeff Leve on his site are much less high on '83. Neither are great fans of '95.)

I really didn’t taste 1981s at all until last year, so I can’t compare 1995s to what they were like 14 years ago, but I have a hard time seeing the parallel. We did a sizable 1981 horizontal in spring 2016. John Gilman was there, so he may have written up notes for VFTC. There are excellent wines in a low key leaner style, but those do not jive with my latest encounters with 1995, which generally speaking appear to me to have more of everything (on both banks), much of it still in reserve. Some examples are Ducru, Calon-Segur, VCC, Barton, and DDC. (I don’t recall ever drinking 1995 Haut Brion.)

Maybe 79 is a good comparison. I don’t know.

Does anyone have experience over decades tracking 1979, 1964, 1966, or even 1953? Francois? Are there lessons there to be learned relating to 1995?

I tend to have patience and confidence. I don’t subscribe to calling now that DDC is drying out. That would be a historical anomaly.

If you’re tasting more '95s sometime, let me know, Jayson. I’d be curious. Maybe I’m being unfair to them.

FYI, 1953 was a very good year – not in the same category as '79 or '95. Not sure how it stacked up against '64 and '66.

How about ‘55 then?

FWIW, I sold almost every bottle of 95 in my cellar. I find the vast majority of the wines to be hard, overly tannic and lacking in charm. At least in my wine, by the time a wine hits 20, it is what is in, in style. It can improve, but stylistically, the wine is not going to change.

Fans of 75 and 86 Bordeaux will be happier with 95, than I am. Yes, 95 is better than both those 2 years, but they are all closely related in terms of character and tannins.

I had a few 1995 Bordeaux at a dinner in November and here are my cursory notes:

• 1995 Château Léoville Barton - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Julien (11/17/2017)
  Very impressive, it unwinds subtly showing nuance and grace, with a little pyrazine greenness adding to the complexity, it richly rewards time in the glass and will reward more cellar time even more. (93 pts.)
• 1995 Clos du Marquis - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Julien (11/17/2017)
  A very pretty and satisfying Bordeaux with lots of gas left in the tank. (91 pts.)
• 1995 Château Montrose - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Estèphe (11/17/2017)
  Still youthful and not really showing too much at this point, but with potential. (90 pts.)

I was a little surprised at just how much more accessible the Leovlle Barton was compared to the Montrose.

Here is the difficult question so often asked that brings forth the reality many will not admit- the answer is at any given time there are very few people, even among dedicated connoisseurs, who have the decades of routine experience (and the memory or well-documented notes) to properly answer such a question. As you indicate, only those who were there when many older vintages were released can truly answer it.

I have been tasting wine, with a strong emphasis on Bordeaux, for 22 years- and I am not able to get that vintage-specific for you in terms of looking back. Looking at the vintages since 1985, I do not have a good comparative for 1995 in Bordeaux. However I do have two in red burgundy- 1995 and 2002.

In all 3 cases, among the general population of the better wines, I see a combination of mid-weight fruit, superb (yet largely hidden) aromatics, and a very stern structure for long term aging. I use the word stern intentionally- in these vintages you do not have loads of obvious tannin, or massive quantities of acids. Rather it is like a wall- and in that sense even more difficult to interpret and make guesses about for the long term. With 1986 Bordeaux, for example, what needs to ameliorate with time is obvious- the masses of tannin. But even tasting those wines in their shut down state, you can still see and taste the massive fruit is also there. There is a long race to the finish, with no certain victory for either side, but you can at least get a good look at the competing elements.

With the 1995s this is not possible because all of the elements are very much wound up in themselves. The same goes for the 2 burgundy vintage comparisons I made- 1995 and 2002. In all 3 instances, many of the top wines were really lovely at release- and showing nicely, if still obviously primary. But then they shut down- and it was a near-complete shut down like one rarely sees. In terms of that phenomenon, 1982 is the only other vintage where I have seen that with any frequency (and note I did not have any of them at release as I was in kindergarten at the time.)

And so, it is a gamble- and a greater one than usual because you are not just dealing with the added risk of a vintage that will need more time (more time to either get really great or go off the rails) but also a vintage where it is very difficult to taste bottles along the way and really see how the elements are evolving relative to each other.

My feeling is that 1995 will yield some wonderful wines in time- as will 1995 red burgundy (2002, I have some concerns.) But it is harder than usual to make educated guesses on that- even if one has experience with a lot of older vintages.

BTW- as to your other post on 1955s, I just have one TN- for Haut Brion. I had it double blind at a Bordeaux tasting 8 years ago, and thought it was the 1975 Haut-Brion (though I also noted it was uncommonly civilized for a 1975.) Really lovely wine and quite youthful. Beautifully balanced as well. You don’t often see them these days, but I ever again come across a cache of well-stored 1955s, I will snap them up in a heartbeat.

I really appreciate where this thread has gone. (It does make me pause to think about some 2002 Burgundy I just bought, though).

To answer your question, Tom: yes that’s what I meant: that sense of what could have been.

As for the comparison of 95 vs 75 and 86, my feeling from tasting odd lots from those three vintages is that 95 is more ripe (if not mega-ripe like more modern vintages) than 75 while not as hard tannic as 86 - yet still has that sense expressed by Tom that it won’t fully come together into its true potential as expressed by the nice qualities of its constituent parts.

I also feel like, tannins aside, 75 had more underripe fruit qualities than 1986.

I will also say the HB was the best 1995 I have had, and repeat that when I had the 1995 HB about six years ago it was too hard, too tannic, obviously not ready - the same quality that appears in 1986s (which albeit I have not tasted recently). So that is a note of positivity that the 95s will provide more drinking pleasure than the “stereotypical” 1986. That is how I would distinguish those 3 vintages, from my current knowledge.

Ultimately I guess John’s point about 1995s having a thin middle palate describes it well, though if so the 95 HB was one of the best-tasting thin middle palate wines I have had. It goes right up to the edge of being great without going over, hence my 94 score range.

I feel like the right examples from 1983 are more well-knit-together than 95HB, such as a 83 DB I tasted in Nov. 83 Ausone tasted at the same time was supremely knit together but also providing a sense of completeness, in the sense that its further evolution is just to become more lacy until it fades away.

I don’t mind waiting more than 20 years for a wine to come together. I have only been collecting for 25 years and I was young when I started and I still don’t have a lot of funds for wine so I don’t have a 10,000 cases cellar of wines waiting to mature, which means I have to buy auction and private trade and there are risks at getting bad bottles which does happen, but good bottles can be glorious.

I remember tasting 66 Latour in 2006 and thinking it had just finally reached optimum drinking window.

As for 1950’s, I remember a post from Francois here last year that the 55s are in a good drinking window right now. The right 53s I expect would be fine. The only 53 I have had (Cheval Blanc) my wife broke. It would be fine to taste good wines from those vintages.

As for 1979, I feel like those matured somewhat more rapidly than the 1995s, I remember having some 1979 LLC 15 years ago (at about the same age the 1995s are now) and thinking it at the back end of the drinking window (a bit too much hard graphite and an immediate transition to the tertiary smoky ash quality), then 12 years ago having the same wine and thinking it not worth pursuing again. I did try the 1995 LLC about 2 years ago and I did not like it as much as the 1995 HB but did not think it was as finished as the 1979 at the same age. Really would have preferred 1976 HB over 1979 LLC or 1995 LLC.

My guess is the softer-styled Bordeaux show better in 1979, Petrus is probably still very enjoyable, and I would be glad to try select growths and Right Bank from 1979.

I could see how you would say 1981 and 1979 more charming than 1995, but I would also - broadly speaking, as I’m sure there are exceptions - say that the 1995 has more of that quality of being disappointing for having higher, and unmet, expectations. So to come back to Tom’s unfurled leaf example.

Comparing the incipient qualities of all three vintages I think we might rank the 1995 as the one best suited to come together, yet at the same time not realizing that potential. So 1995 like an underperforming Big Leaguer and 1981 and 1979 like really good AAA ball players. Ultimately you may prefer to sit back with a 1981 or 1979 - ultimately I may prefer to sit back with a 1981 or 1979 - but I don’t think we would say “what could have been” about them.

So in a sense that may make them the better vintages - that they fulfilled the promise!

As for Jayson’s question about what other vintage has that same sense of unfulfilled promise, I will avoid 2001 and on for being too young right now, the only one I would think of is perhaps 1978. It is interesting to think too about the vintages which have overdelivered but I won’t continue this line of thinking because I have already been part of a thread talking about that here before.

And to talk about green: 1971 - 1971 Mouton I poured blind for a friend and he guessed Cheval Blanc, thining it had a high Cab Franc quality. Not without charm, though.

I am willing to continue to appraise the 1986s - maybe they end up wonderful at age 50.

I also see where Ramon is coming from that there are five vintages of HB better than the 95 in the 2 decades surrounding that vintage.

Mainly it would be fun to get together and taste and discuss in person!

Happy New Year!!

I have tasted the 1995 Haut Brion few times over the years and it has looked good. May be not great but still really nice. In the context of the vintage which lacks ‘charm’ Haut Brion has done nicely. It definitely better than Latour and Margaux. And it significantly more elegant and engaging than LLC and Cos. Favourite would be right bankers - Cheval and Ausone. I still have one bottle of the Haut Brion left in the cellar . Plan to give it some more time. LLCs -I will leave for another decade.