Beychevelle 龍船 1986 (OWC 12)

Description

By Tom Cannavan in 2007 (TC95)
What a lovely nose on this wine, with exquisite aromatics of kirsch-like, soaring fruit, with hints of eucalyptus and Chinese dried plums. There is Sandalwood and some smokiness over a deep well of cassis and bursting damson fruit. The palate shows stunning concentration for Beychevelle, with a mid-palate richness and breadth of flavour, with bloody, earth-streaked black fruits against a firm tannic framework and an edge of acidity. One of the best 1986’s I have tasted, and better balanced than many.

By John Gilman in 2016 (JG94)
The 1986 vintage has produced a fine, fine example of Château Beychevelle, but this wine is still several years climbing and needs more time in the cellar to really blossom. The bouquet is deep, pure and vibrant, offering up scents of red and black cherries, cigar smoke, a fine base of soil tones, cedary oak, coffee and a nice topnote of tobacco leaf. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied, pure and starting to stir and show the first signs of the generosity to come, with a sappy core, fine soil inflection, ripe, firm tannins and a very long, very classy finish. This should prove to be a very long-lived vintage of Beychevelle.

By Wine Spectator 1989 (WS93)
Remarkably complex with rich, concentrated, tannic currant, spice and anise flavors, wrapped in smoky, cedary oak that gets tastier with every sip