Chateau Ducru Beaucaillou 1989

THE WINE ADVOCATE: "Harvest took place this year from 11th to 24th September. The wine was aged for around 12 months in two-thirds new oak. Pale to medium brick colored, the 1989 Ducru-Beaucaillou sashays out of the glass with pretty notes of dried flowers, fallen leaves and dusty soil over a core of warm figs, dried cherries, prunes and spice cake plus wafts of unsmoked cigars and powdered cinnamon. Medium to full-bodied, the palate is still seductively rich with a lively line of soft, silt-like tannins, finishing long and wonderfully savory. Readers should note that this vintage fell within a notoriously patchy period at Ducru, where the cellar is likely to have fallen victim to TCA or a TCA-like taint, and it appears some bottles were impacted from 1986 to 1994. By 1995, the chateau had a completely new vat room/cellar and the problem ceased. Therefore, there could be some bottle variation to be had with this vintage. This bottle, however, was pristine, tasted at the chateau."

JANCIS ROBINSON: "Sweet and rich with a rather tarry finish. May be on the way down, but a good wine."

WINE SPECTATOR: "Delivers lots of tanned leather and spices, with very ripe fruit, from dried strawberry to raisin, turning to jam. Full-bodied, offering a very fresh palate of exotic fruit, currant and raisin as well as silky and polished tannins. So long and beautiful. Why wait? But it has a long life ahead. There is a lot of bottle variation in this wine due to TCA issues, but this is a beauty. -- '89/'99 Bordeaux blind retrospective (2009). Drink now."

WEINWISSER: "Stark aufhellendes Rubin-Granat, sehr transparent. Offenes, stalliges Bouquet, relativ starke Geranioltöne, nasser Waldboden. Eleganter, eher schlanker Gaumen, seidige Tannine, auch im Gaumen wieder leicht malzige, humusartige Töne, Hustenbonbons im Finish, tänzerisch, Luft brauchend, nicht mit andern grossen 1989ern vergleichbar, auch im Finale viele Kräuternoten, sehr schwer verständlich, aufgrund des leicht schweissigen Misstons besser zuwarten oder lange dekantieren."

THE WINE CELLAR INSIDER: "From recorked bottles, this was a clean machine. I asked Bruno Borie how he found 2 clean bottles out of all the tainted bottles. He explained that during recorking, they destroyed all the tainted bottles, which was a massive percentage of the wines they had in their cellar. They saved just the good bottles. Medium bodied, tobacco, cassis, earth and cigar box driven, this bottle was all about its classic Bordeaux style and charm. This is fully mature. There is no reason to wait to pop a cork."