1989 Canon
A second recent bottle of this, and I’m beguiled. I just love the style of this beauty, so savory and zesty. Complex nose here, I get notes of soy sauce, beef broth, smoked black tea, old leather, graphite, kalamata olives, a sweeter facet of cinnamon, and a top note of lemon zest and loam. The palate is fully resolved, silky with a nice attack of brown sugar and a long finish of cola. Mid-weight but pretty pitch perfect balance of fruit-acid-tannin. This is probably at peak but I could see this holding steady like this for a good while. Wonderful. 93-94 pts
Cool note, Pat, sounds really enjoyable. Not sure I have picked up cola on a St Em. Do you think it is showing some fade, some maderization, given the brown sugar and cola? I love a citrus note in many reds, actually picked some up on the third glass of that Dioterie I had last night.
Good question. Tertiary to be sure. But despite a bit of sugar and a slightly browning color at the rim, this showed no oxidation and was still super fresh. It lacked the red cherries younger examples of Canon can have, but I made up for it with complexity.
The way this has aged reminds me of classic Rioja which can be quite sweet (sweeter than this Canon) and fully mature while retaining freshness and brightness. The Canon is more minerally and dark fruited than a Rioja though.
This probably won’t improve any further, but it seems stable and showed no signs of fading over several hours.
Lovers of traditional St Emilion (like me) will dig this.