This is a nice wine...a very nice wine. The eye found a deep rich garnet hue with a deep brown ring. The nose was greeted with tart cherries and unripe strawberries and leather with mint undertones. Unfortunately, there was a bit of a letdown on the tongue...there was a melange of tart berry, green pepper, dried herbs and dried fruit; however, the beauty, balance and elegance that one would expect was missing. The finish, on the other hand, was long, long, long and interesting. We had this with Christmas dinner - an excellent choice! Decanted for sediment only, of which there was quite little. Very clean cork pull. Drink up, as this is probably at or just past its peak.

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This is another wine made during the period when Christian Moueix and his conservative oenologist, Jean-Charles Berrouet, were obviously harvesting very early and also, to my mind, doing entirely too much fining and filtration before the wine got in bottle. My cask tasting notes were significantly higher on all the vintages in the early to mid-eighties, but as most of the wines have aged in the bottle, they have become increasingly weedy, herbaceous, with Medoc-like austerity and excessive tannins for the meager fruit. The 1986 is showing medium ruby/garnet color with considerable amber at the edge. The indifferent bouquet offers up notes of roasted vegetables, Japanese green tea, some smoke, a hint of sweet cherry, and some loamy, earthy, almost mushroomy notes in the background. The wine is austere on the palate, with high tannin and moderate fruit.

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