Color is a darker translucent ruby at the core with noticeable lightening out to the rim. Man, what a great nose this wine has - graphite, black fruits, iron - a lot going on here, and really a pleasure on the nose.
Red & Black fruits on the palate, ripe fruit but not overripe, with a nice lengthy finish. A nice, mature wine from this vintage, and another good example of a wine where it is fun/educational to try the wine side-by-side with it’s sibling from '90. If you still have this in the cellar, there is (at least IMO) no further reason to defer your gratification, as the wine strikes me as mature, although off this bottle I can’t see why it wouldn’t continue on this plateau for another decade. When I think of “bargain” Bordeaux from '89, I usually think first of the '89 Meyney, but at 20+ years of age I think I now prefer what this wine has to offer (although in fairness it also was a couple bucks more per bottle on release).
A fine example of patient cellaring. Nice foresight to accumulate the breadth/depth to pull gems like this.
RT
Sheer luck to some degree - I had the good fortune to be paying attention to RMP when Bordeaux was still “affordable” (through the '95 vintage, IMO), and during the 10 years I lived in Chicago, I had to use off-site storage, so my access to some of these wines was reduced. As a result, I sit here today with a nice selection of mature Bordeaux (and Barolo, for that matter).
![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers")
Bob,
Thanks for the note. I have had a number of 89 Dominique and 89 Meyney. I believe I have one left of each but, I might have 2 Dominique. I fully agree with your flop over to the Dominique recently. Both were good examples of old-style (all things being relative as I have only been at this about 20years) Bordeaux, but, for my palate the Meyney has been a little drier and, though it has, filled in some since my note from the mid-90s, the Dominique’s nose is better and the wine has rounded, if you will, more while the Meyney has remained what I would charactierize as rustic. We were lucky in the 90s to not have to touch our stash of these wines as a favourite local restaurant had these on their list for a long time – along with a few other 89s, like Gloria and Cantemerle – at exceptional prices for my market. Again thanks for your impressions.