Bordeaux and Bordeaux-like tasting notes:
1985 Mondavi Reserve Cabernet - even the regular cab was good this vintage (I finished mine last year). Nice Bordeaux style nose, no over oaking here. Good colour for the age, fair fruit, still some tannins, decent length, slight astringency at end. Drink up.
1975 Ch. Lascombes (Margaux) - corked - too bad!
1998 Los Vascos Cabernet Grand Reserve - this Lafite-run property in Chile has produced some of the best value Bordeaux style wines I've tasted. Good classic nose with excellent levels of fruit, smooth and with good length. Perhaps the most Bordeaux -like - including the real Bordeaux!
1999 Ch. Monbousquet (St. Emilion) - doing its best to emulate a new world wine - big ripe nose with vanilla, espresso and currant, sweet entry, concentrated flavours, tannins soft but evident, medium length with a slight stemminess at the end.
1998 Yarra Yering Dry Red #1 (the Bordeaux blend) - instant Oz recognition in the nose, but only medium sweet on palate, not over the top like so many are, and with good length. I'd have guessed Western Australia rather than Victoria, but definitely cooler climate.
1999 Ch. Malartic Lagraviere - what happened to the pleasant lighter weight claret I drank so much of in the 1982 and 1983 vintages? Damned stuff is on steroids! Again, the sweet black currant and cocoa nose, with a nice minerality, good flavour concentration in the mouth and decent length. Still elegant but bigger than it ever used to be!!