1982 Grand Puy Lacoste

The 1982 Grand-Puy-Lacoste continues to dazzle. This is in such a good place at the moment. From a regular bottle this time, it has a gorgeous blackberry, cedar and pencil box-scented bouquet that revs up with aeration. Pure & classic. The palate is wonderfully balanced; the tannins have finally polymerized to lend this 1982 the sensuality that it missed a few years ago. Just superb. Tasted blind at Maison François in London.

The 1982 Grand-Puy-Lacoste put in a magnificent performance where it looks the First Growths in the eye and challenges their supposed superiority. This is unquestionably the best of a two-dozen-plus bottle enjoyed over the years. It is brilliantly focused and intense on the nose with black fruit, cedar and graphite - quintessentially Pauillac, undimmed by the last four decades. The palate is stunning, pure with unerring symmetry, the once obdurate tannins now polymerizing and rendering a more harmonious, less brutal finish. Magnum format no doubt helped its cause, yet this is just a fantastic GPL. Tasted at the 1982 Dinner at Hatched.

To baptize the new restaurant, one of our generous guests proffered a magnum of 1982 Grand Puy Lacoste. It is a few years since I last tasted this Pauillac but it remains a magnificent wine. Limpid and youthful, it displayed very little ageing compared to other 1982s, partly due to the larger format. The bouquet is very seductive with ebullient dark plum, iodine and blueberry, perhaps not far removed from another great Left Bank that year, the 1982 Pichon-Lalande. The palate is exquisitely balanced with supple, saturated tannins. This has clearly mellowed because it was extremely tannic two decades ago; pure and sensual towards the velvety smooth finish. This is only just reaching its peak, but there is no doubt that well-stored bottles could last another 30-40 years.