The claret vintage series: part two: 1986

Overall vintage rating **** 1/2 

The 1986 vintage has been hailed as a left bank vintage, and produced many long-lived wines, some of which remain tough, tannic and unresolved. It is regarded as a Cabernet vintage, but not all the wines in the top flight are left hookers. There are some conspicuous over-achievers on the right bank, notably the simply spectacular Chateau Figeac and Chateau Cheval Blanc. While many of the wines have taken an age to come round, and some are still tough, all in all 1986 is an outstanding vintage with no obvious weaknesses. 

However one wine in 1986 reigns supreme . It stands head and shoulders above everything else in this vintage. It is of course...no it is not Mouton Rothschild...it is Chateau Margaux. It is a wine of breath-taking precision and power and should last for 100 years. It eclipses the 1983 and 1982 Margaux and along with the 1996 and 2010 is the greatest modern expression of this legendary wine.The Mouton will be a great wine too but I prefer the Lafite, despite the last bottle being duff.

Outside the top five there are many worthy contenders. Prominent among them are Ducru Beaucaillou, Cos D'Estournel and Gruaud Larose.  The final two spots would be taken by Leoville-Lascases, which could also be a 100 year wine, and the more elegant and ethereal Rausan Segla, possibly the best wine this estate ever produced. Honourable mentions would go to Talbot, one unlucky not to be in the top ten, the uncharacteristically burly Pichon Lalande, the sometimes magnificent Chateau Palmer, a superb St-Pierre, Beychevelle, Leoville-Barton, Montrose, Sociando Mallet, Lynch-Bages, Haut Brion and Pape Clement. 

Any disappointments in this vintage? None that I have come across. Many commentators point the finger at Latour for underachieving when the other Medoc first growths excelled. Maybe true, but the fact is that Latour 1986 is a delicious wine. Rather than being foursquare and a vin de garde like the others it is soft and cuddly and eminently quaffable. I don't think quaffing Latour 86, while waiting for your Margaux and Mouton to mature is really such an unpleasant ordeal.  Petrus was gawky and awkward when tried in 2000, but by 2008 it had settled down and seemed to be developing into a seriously good wine.  

Ten runners up

20. Latour
19. Lynch-Bages
18. Beychevelle
17. Haut-Brion
16. Sociando-Mallet
15. St-Pierre
14. Petrus
13. Palmer
12. Pichon Lalande
11. Talbot

Top ten clarets of the 1986 vintage

10. Rausan Segla

9. Leoville-Lascases

8. Gruaud-Larose

7. Cos D'Estournel

6. Ducru Beaucaillou

5. Cheval Blanc

4. Figeac

3. Mouton-Rothschild

2. Lafite

1. Margaux