Bordeaux 89 versus 90 Blind TastingMonday, 29 October 2012(Derby Restaurant, Hong Kong Jockey Club, Hong Kong)Sommelier in Charge: Herve Pennequin, 3rd best Sommelier in the World 2004Bordeaux 89 versus 90The FormatAs a group of my friends have established substantial drinking experience with various vintages of Bordeaux, we decided to do a comparison of two good vintages and see what are the choices available. Originally, only first growth wines were allowed, but I opposed to it as I can name exactly what wines will be top choices -- Haut Brion 89, Lafite 90, followed by Latour 89 and arguably Mouton Rothschild 90. So we allowed classified growths which I will bring some surprise bottles after so many years of drinking both vintages, I know exactly what's going to sing in the blind tasting.Serious Blind Tasting The Fun (And Not So Fun)The wines were decanted at 6 pm by the sommelier in the back room while we sipped some good champagnes. Eh, what do you expect in an 89 versus 90 tasting? Krug 1989! Ok, this is not a bordeaux, but the vintage means something to us. The bottle had an embossed label with the serial number on it. Really impressive looking. Slight citrus, some honey at the entry and still fresh and crisp and bubbly, and what I'd liked about aged champagne is the slightly oxidized secondary flavour. This was good! I took a sip from my wife's glass which was poured from a different bottle of Krug, and it tasted exactly the same, no bottle variation. I can't say the same for champagnes like Cristal 2002, which I've had the honour to drink many bottles over the last 2 years, its a shame to report that bottle variation is so great that I almost concluded that it was going in an extreme direction!Krug 1989 with Serial NumberKrug 89 serial 5423The blind tasting of 9 bottles of bordeaux reds started at 7 pm. As the format was double blind, we have to worry that there were duplicate labels, or my worst nightmare that everyone brings the same vintage, and therefore the theme maybe totally ruined! Thank goodness, by the 3rd glass, I think I had a peace of mind. As usual, we had our exam papers, and the cut off time was set at 8:30 pm. For people like me who likes to analyze wines thoroughly before I give a fair judgment, there's simply not enough time! I have a lot of reservations about such format of blind tasting but due to editorial space, I will only detail that in my future articles. The ResultThe result was shocking, I'd rather not find out. First, I reveal the bottles that we brought along. I brought along all the '90s wines -- La Lagune, Calon Segur and Pavie. I chose these 3 bottles as I have drank them a couple of times to know sufficiently that I was impressed with the labels that it may not be the 1st growth status but it won't be too far away. Other bottles present:89 - Talbot, Lynch Bages, Margaux, Latour90 - Grand Puy Lacoste, Lynch Bages, La Mission Haut Brion plus what I brought -- La Lagune, Calon Segur and Pavie.Now you should take a moment to think about what will be the drinker's top choices and bottom choices? Meanwhile, I'll provide short snippets of the tasting:Talbot 89Nose is rather raw green vegetable. Palette is not very complex, with slightly elevated acidity. The wine has gone downhill after 90 min in the glass. I was quick to place this wine my last choice. My guess? Mouton Rothschild 90.Lynch Bages 89Nose with slight cigar box, smoke and slight perfume. A very balanced wine on the palette, balanced yet drinking with power and lots of matured fruits. Its like a beauty next to the beast (Talbot 89). Thus I quickly concluded that this is going to be my top 3 wines before I even drank any other wines. My guess? Lafite 90.La Lagune 90Leathery nose overwhelmed me with some veggie nose and perfume, nose is also quite mellow. The palette is pleasant and intense, some vanilla, mellow but also thick & juicy. My guess? Pichon Lalande 89Grand Puy Lacoste 90Nose a bit soil, raw and green. Palette is intense, quite substantial amount of vanilla, but balanced. My guess? Cos d'Estournel 89Calon Segur 90Nose is slightly cooked, quite forward with fruits maturing. Wine is lively, but structurally not very strong. The wine is a bit light as well. I got this label correctly.Pavie 90Slightly leather on the nose, but the nose turned sour after 2 hours in the glass. This wine I used to describe it as the "girl next door" 3 years ago but obviously it has grown up a bit with more layers, richness and balance of acidity and fruits. Still very tannic though. My guess was Latour 89.Lynch Bages 90Strong leather nose with very intense fruits. This wine is very rich, thick and deep. Beautifully made. My guess was spot on.Margaux 89Nose smells some strong liquor, leather and faint smoke. Funny on how my tasting note, I said it doesn't have enough depth and structure. However, it was my top choice at 12 midnight, it did not even fade a little after 6 hours in the glass and decanter. I did not try to guess this label.Latour 89The nose was very light, a bit vegetable. The palette was moderately balanced, but lacks depth, a bit woody. I had completely no idea what this wine was. When it was revealed, we were all shocked. Allow me to go into details here, we had 2 bottles of this Latour 89 lately; one in a vertical Latour tasting of 9 vintages of Latour, and Latour 89 was the top of the choice. In another tasting that I held, "Best vintages of First Growth" (consisting of wines like Mouton 82, Margaux 83, Latour 89, Cheval Blanc 89, Latour 95 and Lafite 96), it came in 2nd choice of the drinkers. However, this bottle of Latour 89 only garnered 1 vote tonight, clearly the Onion Wine of the Night! What has gone wrong? The Original Wood Case was from ex-chateau (it was auctioned by Christie's), and we have drank 2 bottles from the same case, all singing well. This bottle just could not perform at all. Some drinkers blame that it was placed at the last 2nd bottle of the flight, and drinkers may have palette fatique, I disagree as experience drinkers don't have this problem. I asked a wine merchant the next day, she provided some explanation that there maybe 2 factors to it -- the cork of the wine was infected with some disease (not TCA taint), or there maybe some detergent in the glass bottle before bottling that causes reaction with the wine. Anyway, this was my first time encountering bottles from ex-chateau not drinking well, so its really something new to me. My friend promised to talk to Frederic Engerer, CEO of Latour the next time he met Federic.La Mission Haut Brion 90Nose was a bit cooked, with some smoke. Woody nose starts to surface after 2 hours. A bit light on the palette, and somehow a mix of vanilla and cherries, however it gained weight on the cherry fruits to become more ripe after 2.5 hours. I have completely no idea on this label, no effort was made to guess it. Blinded bottlesRevealed bottles of Bordeaux 89 and 90 Wine of the night turned out to be both 89 and 90 vintages -- Lynch Bages 89 and Grand Puy Lacoste 89.There were 4 wines that came in tier 2 (or 2nd place depending on perspective) -- La Lagune 90, Calon Segur 90, Lynch Bages 90 and Margaux 89.Tier 3 went to a lonely label -- Pavie 90Last places were 3 bottles -- Latour 89, La Mission Haut Brion 90 and Talbot 89.Well, I guess we still don't have a conclusive answer which vintage is drinking better than each other, 89 or 90? I guess that's less important, but the fact that 5th growth Pauillac is again proven that they're not inferior wines, and good vintages 5th growth are impressive. Read my article on Are 5th growth inferior wines? Maybe its the right drinking window? I always maintain that fifth growth wines are never inferior, and one should not use the 1855 classification as a gauge of different grades of wines (the way they graded the classification was based upon price of the wines sold in the market, and price is always a relative gauge). Up till now, my most memorable label is still a fifth growth Mouton Baron Philippe 1961.The judgment on Margaux 89 and La Mission Haut Brion 90 was a bit unfair as it wasn't given enough time. These 2 wines were clearly superb towards the end of the dinner, after 6 long hours. It perhaps imply very long aging potential, I will not hesitate to buy more. Thus we cannot pass judgment of the wine based upon a snapshot of blind tasting, I'm not a staunch believer of blind tasting but this format does give us some feedback without label influence, and some fun for the night.
