Iām not sure '89 Lafite was ever hyped as āgreatā, but thereās certainly a lot of examples of supposedly great vintage + first growth = dud. FWIW, all the '82 PLs I was lucky enough to taste were quite lovely. My nominations would be:
Chateau Grillet (just not a good or very interesting wine)
Egon Mueller Scharzhofberger Spaetlese (just not showing anything this philistine doesnāt get from dozens of cheaper Riesling)
I havenāt listed dozens of examples of Rhone wines that were super-hyped and high-scoring on release, because thatās a road well-travelled on this Board!
most lauded post-1999 Bordeaux, with a few honourable exceptions.
Most recently the 2005 and 2010 Chateau Palmer I had the other day, which were really underwhelming (thought admittedly the 2015 and 2016 were pretty good - are they turning the tide? I guess weāll have to wait and see).
I bought a bottle of 1945 Domaine Ponsot from the Clos St. Denis Grand Cru appellation from this guy name Rudy K in NY. It just tasted like red blend someone put together in their kitchen.
On a serious note, I know this isnāt a Grad Cru or anything, but I remember early in my wine life I tasted I bottle of Silver Oak from Napa and I didnāt understand the hype at that time. I wish I remembered the vintage.
āGreatā is an overstatement here, and itās not in the league of these first growths and all in the thread.
But as far as a wine that was $90, got huge scores, and comes from a grape (cab franc) and region (Tuscany) both of which I generally love, I was horribly disappointed by Le Macchiole Paleo. So soft, oaky, generic, no sense of the grape or the place, could have been just about anything, tasted like it was worth more like $25.
The La Chapelle 1990
I understand more than one bottling, and the European versions are stellar. The ones I have had in the U.S. were underwhelming.
My underwhelming wine was the famous Cheval 1947, two bottles, the first a Van der Meulen bottling. The tasting was memorable anyway, as two of the people started a fist fight over Parker, one having to be restrained. Passions must have been running high as the big guy was around ten inches taller and probably eighty pounds heavier.
Back to the Cheval. This was not just a bad bottle, it was godawful one. It smelled and tasted of skunk; and it wasnāt just a nuance, it was front, center and round the sides.
The second bottle was chateau bottled and pronounced correct. Overripe, plummy, essence of raisin, soft from an almost total absence of acidity. Tasted around 2000, it showed no complexity whatsoever, but there were some in the group who liked it, but there were no takers for wine of the century or even wine of the night (La Mission 1955).