1986 Calon Segur St Estephe

1986 Calon Segur St Estephe

I bought a dozen of this wine with rundown or remnants of label. For wines, I stress a lot on provenance over appearance, disintegrated labels have never affected my purchasing decision, simply because it has nothing to do with the content. Of course if you’re buying as a gift, it matters a lot. I’m a drinker, not a label drinker, thus my priority is the content. 1986 is a very interesting Bordeaux vintage. I once remembered a wine critic claiming Chernobyl nuclear disaster affecting the outcome of the Bordeaux vintage. Frankly, after 35 years, if that’s true, then we shall have more nuclear disaster! For almost all 86 Bordeaux I have tasted, they are extremely young, definitely did not taste like a 35 year old wine. Calon Segur’s bouquet is driven by dark fruits and smoky flavor. Content was stunningly young, with very well integrated tannins, loads of dark berries with great finesse, very creamy as well. I’d love to drink this wine all day. A great outcome for a perfect content with imperfect label.

6 Mar 2019
Was in a rush, I did not decant it earlier, so pretty much pop and drink. I know it wouldn’t be enough airing for the wine, so it’s also a great opportunity to watch the evolution in the glass and decanter. It started off with strong but elegant smoke, took 15 mins for the addictive smoke to get covered by strong fruits, mainly blackcurrant and dark fruits. Initially the wine tasted very thin and lacked taste. The wine opened up in the glass about 30 mins later and blossomed into masculine style in 45 mins, turned out to be very elegant with loads of chewy dark fruits. It’s fun to watch the evolution of the wine!