Interesting notes since I have 2 bottles each of the 03 and 00 in my cellar that I have yet to try and probably won’t for quite a while longer. Maybe time will help! I read once that a young bad wine will always be bad, but I have been surprised in both directions in the past. Favorite example is 6 bottles of 94 Pontet Canet a client gave me years ago. Tried 2 at 10 years old and both were disgusting tasting of liquid ash. Tried another 4 years ago and it was very good. Irony was a friend brought a 95 to the same event, the WS wine of the.year, and it was corked.
Liquid ash? Yum, I’d be all over that. ![[wow.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/7/7d450e9830889c8943b674446a21b7254cad657e.gif "wow"){kind=small}
I actually like the '94 Pontet Canet. The Leoville Barton as well.
Lascombes is DTM. It’s like liquid oak to me. I just got rid of my ‘05, I’m done with this estate. I think Panos’ call on this wine is dead accurate regarding the heavy use of oak.
Had a 2003 last night. Lets just say there would be no way to call this a margaux in a blind tasting. Will hide last bottle as a crap shoot, but not betting on it
Why is anyone blaming Colony Capital? They simply hired “top” oenologists, winemakers, etc, asked them to deliver big Parker points, and got overoaked modernist wines that lack distinctiveness. Isn’t that the typical formula?
Lascombes had a sweet spot in the 1960s and 1970s, when Alexis Lichine owned it. Even so, it prompted one of my favorite wine lines ever.
A friend of mine was trying to sell Peter Morrell a dozen cases of the 1975. Morrell thought about it, and answered,
“Donald, I have been trying to rack my brains, but really can’t find a question, where the right answer would be 1975 Lascombes.”
1996 is very good, and so surprisingly is the 1998. It had a very definite Graves character. Après ça, le déluge
I’ve been a fan of every Lascombes I’ve had from the 60’s & 70’s so were there major changes in the 80’s and again around 2000?
There is an interesting potted history of Lascombes on Wikipedia. Lichine had an interest between 1952 and 1971. Subsequently owned by the Bass group (also owned Latour) until 2001. The parties at Lascombes during Bass’ tenure were “legendary”. There was one where girls from Crazy Horse night club stripped and dived into the pool, shocking local residents. Tame stuff now, but still being talked about years later.
Even the best wines at Lascombes are a few notches below Palmer, and there seems to be a consensus that there a few great parcels of land, but for the most part, the terroir is nowhere near as good as the 1855 classification ranked it.
I agree the 2005 is horrible; too much oak make-up that could do nothing to disguise the ugliness of the underlying wine.
My father read about Alexis Lichine at some point in the late 60’s/early 70’s, was impressed, and bought some Lascombes from 1975-1979 to cellar. We drank most of these in the mid 1990’s and they were actually pretty lovely wines with an especially expressive bouquet. The 75 is still alive and kicking when I had it this year to boot…
I drank an 03 Lascombes a few weeks back, and it has improved. Wild stuff with some really ripe elements mixed with some odd underripe notes. Drinkable, which is a major step up from when it was released.
The 1970 was a winner…
TTT