Blind 1995 Bordeaux (and others)

BLIND 1995 BORDEAUX AT TABLE, DONKEY AND STICK - Chicago, IL (4/26/2017)

Matt planned out an amazing dinner to pair with the theme of blind 1995 Bordeaux, some of which he provided, and some of which we brought along. The biggest lesson learned is that the wines were much better with food, and that the vintage as a whole still doesn’t strike me as quite ready to drink.

  • 2006 Marc Hébrart Champagne Premier Cru Special Club - France, Champagne, Champagne Premier Cru
    From magnum. Outstanding. This shows so much pinot character throughout. Dense and potent, with amazing depth and extract. There’s an absolutely enchanting aroma of red delicious apples on the nose. The palate is thick and richly textured, but not heavy. Fresh minerality and a touch of sweetness. (93 pts.)
  • 2004 Domaine Francois et Antoine Jobard Meursault 1er Cru Charmes - France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Meursault 1er Cru
    As with the great white Burgundies, I just love the reduction on the nose here. It’s not too thick and in fact it seems to have integrated very nicely with the rest of the wine. Yes, the matchstick is definitely there, but it’s also coupled with intense minerality. The oak is a bit prominent, but it isn’t charred or out of place. Thickly textured, with a hint of coconut. An older Meursault, this has lost some verve of youth, but this is not an old wine at all. (93 pts.)
  • 1995 Caymus Cabernet Sauvignon Special Selection - USA, California, Napa Valley
    Served blind in flights of 1995 Bordeaux. The nose on this showed quite a bit of oak, along with some of the attendant aromas: I picked up a lot of coffee on this one. Fairly ripe, with some clear French oak flavours on the palate as well. Of a more riper style, though not to the point that I’d say this was outside of Bordeaux; I guessed this was probably a more modernist producer from the left bank, since I didn’t pick up any merlot or franc. (90 pts.)
  • 1995 Château Ducru-Beaucaillou - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Julien
    Served blind in flights of 1995 Bordeaux. In comparison to the 95 Caymus SS, this was a much more demure, and dusty wine, which actually had me thinking St. Julien, but I hedged and simply concluded that this was left bank. This was also clearly a lot less ripe and oaky, so I had in mind one of the more classic producers. I suppose at the end of the day, this bottle showed exactly as one would stereotype the appellation and estate. (93 pts.)
  • 1995 Château Calon-Ségur - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Estèphe
    Served blind in flights of 1995 Bordeaux. Clearly a wine of good pedigree, with a lovely dose of pyrazines and darker fruit on the nose and palate. Unfortunately, this was all at happening at the same time as a light blanket of wet cardboard. NR (flawed)
  • 1995 Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac
    Served blind in flights of 1995 Bordeaux. Clearly left bank of high caliber. The nose on this was perfumed, complex, and full of those classic aromas you’re looking for in Bordeaux: black fruit, a bit of cedar, some leather, some dirt. The palate is a bit surprising given the nose, though, it’s a bit less perfumed and explosive, and lies more on the red side of the spectrum. The acidic lift here is incredible, too. The sweeter red fruit here did give me some pause as to whether this could have been a classic Californian cabernet, but in the end, I settled with my gut instinct. As an addendum, this bottle was decanted four hours before the next one. (95 pts.)
  • 1995 Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac
    Served blind in flights of 1995 Bordeaux. How strange it is to have two of the same wine, blind, side-by-side, when the lineup was randomly determined? It was later concluded that this bottle was decanted four hours later than the previous, which we used as an excuse to justify the very different showings. Especially after the tasting, retasting the two side-by-side, the differences seemed much less stark. There’s probably some trick of psychology going on here as well. In any case, I found this bottle darker, with a more brown spice tone. The palate was much thinner than the previous bottle, and the acid and tannin didn’t feel very much in balance with each other. However, it was still fairly clear to me that this was a cabernet-heavy left bank wine. (88 pts.)
  • 1995 Château Léoville Barton - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Julien
    Served blind in flights of 1995 Bordeaux. Charred oak on the nose, this came across as a bit flashy. Black fruit, and very dense, this wasn’t a particularly nuanced wine. At the end of the day, I did feel as if this had enough earthiness that left bank was still a good guess. (88 pts.)
  • 1995 Pavillon Rouge du Château Margaux - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Margaux
    Served blind in flights of 1995 Bordeaux. The nose on this was much better than the palate. Tons of graphite and pencil shavings, coupled with dark fruit. The acidity here is plentiful, but the palate isn’t too there. It feels a little thin and the acids jut out a little bit too much. Still, a fairly easy left bank guess for me. (88 pts.)
  • 1995 Château Pichon-Longueville Baron - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac
    Served blind in flights of 1995 Bordeaux. High-toned nose that almost has a bit of aldehyde to it. The palate is heavy and floppy, this is a shapeless blob of fruit that just falls with a dull thud. I guessed some sort of disastrous right bank wine. Imagine my surprise and disappointment when this was revealed. There’s a possibility this wasn’t a sound bottle, but it certainly didn’t have obviously detectable flaws. (83 pts.)
  • 1995 Château Lynch-Bages - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac
    Served blind in flights of 1995 Bordeaux. Really not sure what went on here. Some at the table thought this was flawed, based on some sort of tinniness on the palate. I didn’t know what this wine was, so I wasn’t entirely comfortable calling it flawed either. But especially in hindsight, this was not a great showing. A somewhat high-toned nose, with a bit of dark fruit, and a palate that is mostly a bit of acid and fairly hollow. There are still a few earthy elements here though, but all in all, not a very good bottle of this wine. (85 pts.)
  • 1995 Domaine Jean Grivot Clos Vougeot - France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Clos Vougeot Grand Cru
    Served blind in flights of 1995 Bordeaux. My bottle, so I knew what I was looking for. It was lightly corked. Interestingly, no one picked it out as pinot, though most didn’t get past the TCA. NR (flawed)
  • 1994 Arrowood Cabernet Sauvignon Réserve Spéciale - USA, California, Sonoma County
    Served blind in flights of 1995 Bordeaux. High-toned, with a good dose of Sharpie marker on the nose. Super ripe, and way too rich. Another of those “oak the terroir out of the wine” wines, but in all fairness, the oak isn’t so bad that it singes the palate with its tannin. This was the first bottle (apart from the Grivot) where it was fairly obvious to say this probably wasn’t Bordeaux, though from where? Ended up calling it as some international modernist bullshit (sorry, Peter!). Odd, since this was still from an era where the California wines were only just starting to push the octane levels. (80 pts.)
  • 1995 Château Monbousquet - France, Bordeaux, Libournais, St. Émilion Grand Cru
    Served blind in flights of 1995 Bordeaux. High-toned, this was very heavy, but definitely not as overdone as the 94 Arrowood RS. Sweet and very fruity, this seemed to have a real heavy ripeness to it. Nothing particularly outstanding, but mercifully the oak wasn’t too bad either. I pinned this down as a middle-tiered Napa cabernet based on that riper fruit profile. Whoops. (85 pts.)
  • 1995 Billecart-Salmon Champagne Cuvée Nicolas-François Billecart - France, Champagne
    This was good, but not showing very well for a wine that ought to be fairly young. There was much more mushroom and sherry on the nose than I would have expected. In fact, if I had been served this blind, I would have thought 80s champagne. Nevertheless, there’s still some life and fruit to balance the acidity in this, but I preferred the 2006 Hebrart Special Club. (88 pts.)

Ugh.

Wish you had the 1995 Clinet in there to see how it compared. It’s been very impressive lately but would love to try it blind against these others. I’m sure the results weren’t what you were hoping for but still a very cool night. Thanks for sharing.

Not surprised by the results at all. 1995 came after 4 really mediocre vintages, and was talked up by the wine trade. A lot of Far Eastern buyers entered the market, and the better estates tripled overnight. By the time I went to Bordeaux in June (having missed the primeur tastings) I was expecting some fireworks.

I stayed at Chateau Loudenne in the Northern Medoc, and I tasted through 100 samples one day with the Loudenne manger, Charles Eve an M.W. and Alain Raynaud, who at the time, was head of the Union of Grands Crus. We discussed the wines that night, and I have too say we were all agreed on how disappointing we found the wines.

Although there were some wines in the low nineties, with the exception and Margaux and Haut Brion, nothing else approached the mid nineties. I have to say that tasting them on their tenth anniversary, I gave slightly higher marks to a few Pomerols, but overall, it has been for me an ungenerous vintage, with relatively thin, angular wines.

The 1990s were in general not a great decade for Bordeaux, and 1995 enjoys tall midget status. Both 1996 Medoc and 1998 Right Bank are excellent and probably allows both vintages to average out better than 1995.

“tall midget status” - that is a new one, and I think I like it.

A jumbo shrimp, in the Vintage_s_ of the Century pantheon.

I’d second your take on the vintage. It always seemed to me to lack some concentration in the middle.

As for pricing, the US prices had a lot to do with the exchange rate. The dollar had plunged to about 5 francs in 1996 when the '95s went on sale as futures. The compares to a high over more than 10 in 1985 and about 7 when the euro was introduced in 1999.

95 was clearly overhyped – especially by Suckling back when he retained some credibility-- for the quality, but there are a number of specific wines that I am quite high on in 95 even if they need more time to reach their best :
Pichon Lalande
Cos
Montrose
Calon Segur
Grand Puy Lacoste
Trotanoy
Ducru B.
Leoville Las Cases
Smith Haut Lafite
Pavie Macquin
Angelus
L’Evangile

I’m sure there are plenty more on the Right Bank that I haven’t tried and the First Growths. Of course, this is vin garde here with firm tannin and a sterner impression which will never appeal to some folks.

Thanks for the interesting notes, Adrian.

In those days, Pichon-Lalande actually had by far the lowest proportion of cabernet of major Left Bank wines. The estate was planted to 45% cab and 35% merlot in that era. (Source: Parker’s Bordeaux book, 1985 edition, and Coates’s Bordeaux book, 2004). In the past decade, the new owners have been replanting/grafting to a much higher level of cabernet.

P. Lalande also used a lot of cab franc and petite verdot in some vintages. I recall that as much as 10% was petite verdot in some years

I think all of the wines would have benefitted from more air - most were opened/double decanted just an hour or two before dinner.

I also think that Pav rouge showed well and was a favorite of the room, perhaps more than Adrian’s note would indicate. As for the Caymus, I actually think Adrian was uncharacteristically generous with his scoring of that wine for its style :slight_smile:

It was a real shame that the one burgundy in there was flawed, it would have been very interesting to see if people picked it up or not…

Looks like another fairly poor showing of the 95s. Still sad about my 95 Calon haha.

I think my favorite 95 is probably the PLL, not having had many of the big boys. Will be interesting to see at age 30 how some of the larger left bank wines show.

Thanks for the notes,

I have a number of 95s as its my daughter’s birth year. The Angelus and the Ducru are doing great right now. I’m holding the Margaux and remaining Angelus. I do have a mag of Calon Segur, so I’m hoping some of the recent notes are off. That being said, its not turning out to be a strong vintage.

Cos d’Estournel
PLL
L’Evangile
Leoville Las Cases
Grand Puy Lacoste,
Angelus
Smith Haut Lafitte
Sociando Mallet

These some of what comes to mind that I thought were good wines that defy the negative generalization against the 95s that some here had brought up.

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I think I have all of those except for Smith Haut Lafite and Pavie Macquin. I am optimistic about the future of these wines. And, yes, most of the best 1995s will require 5+ years to come around.

I have liked '95…esp. GPL and Pontet

Below are the '95’s that I bought on release and have been following. These drank well on release but then shut down hard and are only now starting to open up. * are my fav’s, but I feel that all offer good value and are really nice wines now. The Lynch took the longest to come out of its shell.

Calon-Ségur
Cos d’Estournel *
Grand-Puy-Lacoste *
Haut-Brion *
Léoville Las Cases *
Lynch-Bages
Pontet-Canet
Sociando-Mallet

Ah yes, the 95 Pontet Canet is another winner. But as mentioned, better in 5+ years.

1995 Haut Brion is great. Cheval Blanc and Ausone were really nice.
Latour few years ago was unimpressive ; perhaps decanting could have helped (?). Ditto with LLC.