Some of the contenders at the pre-tournament weigh in:
Flight one - right banks
Risotto of morels with mimolette and snails
Cheval Blanc - poignant, alluring and thrilling nose of leafy tobacco and decay that carries into a silky, luxurious and expansive palate and a long lingering finish. It is beautifully poised, and never heavy as it glides across the palate. Nothing forced or contrived, this is a perfect glass of mature Cheval Blanc which eclipses the 1983 and 1985.
Figeac - woodsy, greenish, creosote, fruit- shy, improved over the night, over time tobacco and leafy notes. Different to the one we had in Febraury; less thrilling but less flawed. Outclassed by the Cheval Blanc.
Latour A Pomerol - corked, good wine underneath.
Flight two - southern first growths
Haut Brion - impeccable poise and grivatas, understated and restrained with subtle notes of earth, damp gravel, melted road tar, rocks, minerals and spices. While this may come across as shy next to a 1989 it is fully mature and in the perfect place. It is the better wine to drink now.
Margaux - another wine which is a triumph of finesse over power, somewhat reticent it always tends to skulk when subjected to the indignity of comparative tastings. It is subtly fragrant with floral, cedary with tobacco notes. A wine which whispers rather than shouts its wares, it will always be there or thereabouts.
Flight three - Pauillac first growths
Fillet of white park beef with smoked tendons, stuffed shallots and bone marrow
Lafite - purple at the rim like a ten-year old, it was subdued and shy on the nose. Initially not showing much on the palate either it is still cocooned and tightly wound up; but as the evening progresses it slowly starts to express itself. Aristocratic and elegant, it is seamless and smooth with its best years ahead of it. It still needs 10-20 years; by then it will be challenging Latour for the mantle of 'wine of the vintage.'
Mouton - a more expressive wine with soy and coffee bean and a full-bodied, mouth-filling, palate of berries, spice, mocha and tobacco. Marvellously thrilling and exuberant, the tannins are still not fully integrated, nor dispersed. Well stored bottes should continue to improve.
Latour - a powerful, forceful wine, which is approaching full maturity. This has oodles of fruit, cigar box, minerals, slate, graphite...just about everything. The only slight quibble is that it lacks the beguiling complexity and the under-stated elegance of some of the other wines here, nor, perhaps, is it as delicious as the 1990 Latour. But it is undoubtedly a monumental - Churchillian - Latour with its best years ahead of it.
Flight four: Super seconds
Glazed short rib of white park beef with creamed potato and truffle
Leoville-Lascases - pure and young, it continues to age glacially. This example had a purple rim and an integrity and dexterity of pure fruits, and some lead pencil , but not as much as last time. Like the 1986 it is an impeccable wine but it lacks the personality of some of its more illustrious peers.
Pichon Longueville Comtesse De Lalande - a maroon robe, still delicious and gorgeous, but some of the burnt raspberry vibrancy has faded, and this wine now lacks the grip it once had. Maybe this was atypical, but on this showing, this has now been overtaken by Latour in the Great 1982 horse race.
Gruaud-Larose - I expected this to be outclassed by its two super second flight mates, but in some ways it was the more complete wine with arousing beefy overtones with little of the Cordier funk and brett on show. It was tighter and grippier than the Pichon, but more sybaritic than the Lascases.
My pecking order - in reverse order (not including LaP)
10. Figeac
9. Pichon Lalande
8. Leoville Lascases
7. Margaux
6. Gruaud-Larose
5. Latour
4. Mouton
3. Lafite
2. Haut-Brion
1. Cheval Blanc
The group's wotn was Latour, followed by Cheval Blanc and Haut-Brion
We finished of with Chateau d'Yquem 1986, which was a rich burnt rusty orange, with marmalade more than citrus-exotic fruit notes as it enters middle age.
Howard and Maureen...
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