TN: 1989 Joël Taluau Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil Vieilles Vignes

1989 Joël Taluau Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil Vieilles Vignes
My first time trying this producer. Vivid, complex, herbal, detailed bouquet of black peppercorns, tomato leaf, sandalwood, capsicum/pyrazines, wood smoke, and notes of cinnamon-infused red cherries. Clean, bright, smooth, lean palate but with enough fruit and weight, quite delightful really. So easy to drink. With air, shows some distinctive flavors of rhubard’n’raspberries with some pomegranate-black tea. Burgundy meets Bordeaux. Surely at peak, but holding with a good color and no fading over 4 hours. Not the last word in complexity nor depth, but so on point and this shines with a meal. I ran out and bought the rest of this where I got the first bottle, a great value at <$40. 92 pts.

I have slowly come around to the brilliance of Loire reds, but it seems that it’s only the fully mature bottles that really speak to me (stuff from 89 and 90 mostly). My only nitpick is how lean these wines can seem, at least when young. I guess I need to keep back-filling, unless there are some bigger vintages and producers you guys can point me to?