[TN] '86 Cos d'Estournel

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Ian Glover 22 years ago

Be gentle please! Its the first time I've exposed tasting notes to the real world.

1986 Cos d'Estournel

Picked up this bottle at a local Oddbins shop a few months ago and seemed like a good weekend to open it. Colour was very dark though the rim was just beginning to fade to a brickish red. Nose was quite dense and heavy with some oak coming through but no overt single fruit. Initial taste it seem very hot in the mouth, with firm but not overpowering tannins. Quite full and I struggled to pick out any single flavour. With tasted with the steak we were having it smoothed out and there was a hint of mint. Finish was reasonable but I didn't notice it as particularly long.

It was an interesting wine to try and clearly has a long life ahead of it though in hindsight probably a bit dear at £86 (about $140 at the time of purchase, rather more with the current exchange rates).

Ian

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Dale Williams 22 years ago

No need to be gentle, nice clear notes- thanks!

just beginning to fade to a brickish redNose was quite dense and heavy

I had it several months ago, these were my notes:

1986 Cos d'Estournel (St-Estèphe)-still a deep colored wine, the nose was a delicious mix of cedar/cigarbox, earth, smoked meat, and dark fruits. Very good red berry and plum fruit. Still somewhat tannic, but with a hunk of red meat all one could want in a Bordeaux. Fruit, acidity, and tannins made a nice package. Wow. A

Our impressions aren't that far off, and once one takes into account possible storage differences , and the fact that my friend decanted bottle for about 7 hours before dinner...

thanks again! I hope you keep posting notes. Dale

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Ian Hoare 22 years ago

Salut/Hi Dale Williams,

le/on 16 Feb 2004 22:27:35 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

Agreed!

Cor, 7 hours!!! I thought _I_ was the one who decanted early!! Mind you, for a wine only 18 years old from Cos....

If I'd been opening the wine, my immediate gut reaction (assuming high fill levels etc) would be to decant it a couple of hours before drinking, and taste half an hour before, with a view to re-decanting.

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John Taverner 22 years ago

Welcome to another UK punter. This is a good newsgroup, very good TN's, and not too serious.

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Dale Williams 22 years ago

In the case of the bottle I tried, my friend Larry had plenty of recent experience with the '86, and felt several hours was way to go. 1986 is probably the most tannic vintage since '75 (other opinions? Bill, Michael, others?). Dale

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Bill Spohn 22 years ago

Yup - it can be a pretty hard little bugger, though I've seen some lately that were quite approachable.

Here's my last note on it, from a Cos vertical (the Montrose vertical we did easily surpassed it):

1986 - an excellent wine! Best nose of the evening, cigar-box, anise and plum, huge in the mouth, puckering the sides with massive tannins, great depth and length - this wine cries out "I am St. Estephe!" There was some discussion as to whether it has sufficient fruit to outlast the tannins, and some people were in doubt. I am not - I vote firmly in favour of this being a classic, but then I am also a big fan of the 1975 vintage so that opinion should be considered in that light. This wine was my choice for wine of the evening, but my opinion was shared by only a couple of others.

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Ian Glover 22 years ago

Thank you both.

From Dale's notes I'd say that early decanting would have been the way to go. I did consider it but was nervous of it going over the hill since I don't have much experience of Bordeaux of that age. In the end we decanted a couple of hours ahead (but didn't think of re-decanting), and you could notice it smooth out at the end of the evening (five-ish hours later).

Regards

Ian

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Ian Hoare 22 years ago

Salut/Hi Ian Glover,

le/on Tue, 17 Feb 2004 19:16:37 +0000, tu disais/you said:-

Yup, especially with Bill Spohn's imprimature.

With great wines from good years, 18 isn't old at all. I'm not claiming the vintages are even vaguely similar, but the 1st growth '61s are reputed to be just beginning to show their quality.

Double decanting is standard technique at Lafite, apparently, and it's always worth considering if a wine isn't coming round as fast as you first expected.

Welcome to the club!

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Bill 22 years ago

I have always felt that a few more years of aging would cure the backwards nature of a wine. Am I wrong? Does a wine like the 86 Cos D'Estournel never come around?

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Dale Williams 22 years ago

Well, I thought it was damn delicious after the long decant. With plenty of fruit left (the question with a hugely tannic wine is whether the fruit will outlast the tannin). My guess is this will be a nice wine for a long time to come. Dale

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[TN] '86 Cos d'Estournel

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