1989 Château Bahans Haut-Brion- France, Bordeaux, Graves, Pessac-Léognan (2/28/2012)
The best second wine I’ve ever had. It really showed off the Graves terroir, coming across sometimes as smoke, sometimes as charcoal, sometimes as barbecue sauce and sometimes like the peat treatment on Scotch whisky. There was a lot of blackcurrant fruit left, way more than I’d expect for a 25-year-old second wine, and some earth and iodine character to round it out. In the mouth it was soft and persistent with a nice touch of acid. Well worth the $125 investment. NB I first tried this wine two years ago, and although a classy drink it wasn’t nearly as good as this bottle. (92 pts.)
Dan, we had the Bahans 89 next to the Haut Brion 89 and the Mission 89 blind in a flight about a year ago. The Bahans came out ahead as the WOTF. Great wine. Cheers.
For serious?? That’s a stunning result. Were the other two wines correct? Did your blind notes on them mention any potential flaws? Where would you have ranked all 3 bottles on an absolute scale? This 89 Bahans was an exceedingly lovely wine, but certainly nowhere near, say, my top 20 all-time. If I had the good fortune one day to try an 89 HB or LMHB and it didn’t crack my top 20, I’d be quite disappointed.
Dan, all three wines were glorious. My understanding after the fact was that maybe the Bahans was more open and ready to drink that day. I’ve been lucky to share in about 8 bottles of the 89 Haut Brion over the years and sometimes it shows great and other times so so. That’s the beauty of blind tasting.
I have had the 89 HB side by side with the LMHB and I’m not entirely surprised by this. Both wines are stunning yet showing quite young. If you are a fan of a more mature style the Bahans might be in a better spot, however the other two should eclipse in time. For instance I actually preferred the 90 HB as it was more aromatic and mature.
Agree. The 90 HB outshines the 89 HB at the moment. We’ve done that head to head twice over the past three years and the 90 HB wins by a healthy margin. Who knows 10 years from now.
Dan- I remember many years ago talking to Jean Bernard Delmas ( the winemaker ) about how good that Bahans was- and he said it was a mistake in that it was too close to the 89 Haut Brion that year and that he did too severe a selection. Wonderful man, a real pleasure to talk to. My oldest son was born in 89 and I bought quite a bit.We’ve drunk through most of it. I pulled a case for his wedding in august for his friends to drink if they wanted Bordeaux.Its been tasting great for 20 yrs.
This thread is really saying a lot about this wine. I’ve never had the 89 Bahans HB, but have had the 89 LMHB and HB 3 times in head to head during vintage horizontal dinners and still can’t decide which one is better. But imho both always definitely trump the next big boys of the vintage, i.e. the Montrose, the Conseillante, the Palmer, the Lynch Bages etc. With my not-as-extensive-as-the-pros-here Bordeaux experience, both the 89 HB and LMHB, are up there in my pinnacle of best claret of all time.