1986 Leoville Las Cases

The 1986 Leoville-Las Cases, which Delon continues to believe is his finest vintage in the eighties (even eclipsing the 1982), still exhibits a black/purple color with no signs of age. The nose offers up aromas of exceptionally ripe cassis fruit intertwined with scents of vanillin, minerals, and spices. The wine is full-bodied, exceptionally well-delineated, and phenomenally concentrated. Still unevolved and youthful, this is one of the most profound Leoville-Las-Cases, but for my palate, it remains a notch behind both the 1982 and 1996. Anticipated maturity: 2003-2030. Last tasted 3/97. Robert Parker, Bordeaux Book, 3rd Edition # B1

The 1986 Leoville-Las Cases is still so youthful in appearance after 30 years, with only a thin bricking on the rim giving away its age. The bouquet is magnificent: extraordinarily pure and delineated, bewitching black fruit laced with cedar and graphite, the latter lending an almost Pauillac-like personality. The palate is exactly as I have found the previous dozen or so bottles I have tasted: structured, delineated, intense, aristocratic and imperious. It is less formidable than say, ten years ago, so it has probably just stepped onto its drinking plateau. The acidity is perfectly judged lending freshness and tension, crucial to counterbalance those layers of spicy black fruit that fans out with cedar and graphite (again) towards the finish. You come away with the feeling of having consumed a wine with immense energy, yet with so much more to give over the next three decades, and knowing this property, perhaps even the three decades after that! I would agree with the late Michel Delon: the 1986 Leoville Las-Cases is the summit of the 1980s. Tasted September 2016. Dec 2016, www.robertparker.com