1986 Bordeaux Wine Tasting Including Lafite, Mouton, Margaux, La Mission Haut Brion and more – A Study of 40 Year Old Bordeaux Saturday, January 31, 2026 7:30 PM
"Spent my days with a woman unkind,
Smoked my stuff and drank all my wine.
Made up my mind to make a new start,
Going to california with an aching in my heart."
Going to California by Led Zeppelin
This is a rare opportunity to study a group of wines from an outstanding vintage from Bordeaux that turn 40 this year. That’s right I’m talking about all you 1986 vintage people out there as well, at 40 years old you are at your peak and as a bottle of classified growth Bordeaux from a GREAT vintage you are also at your peak.
Every year we try to give our “Wine Drinking People” an opportunity to sample wines from their birthyear and 40 is a big one for most people. I think that most people still consider themselves on the young side at 40 years of age but for wines it can be a much different thing as many have seen better days unless they are the top wines and that vintage just happened to be a gift from mother nature.
The 1986 vintage in Bordeaux produced wines of incredible depth and structure. The critics scored the wines high and we have few 100 Point wines on the table as well as 3 of the 5 first growths of the left bank. All of which cost more than the price of admission to taste these 11 Bordeaux wines on the table tonight and this includes dinner!!
The fee to taste all these 40 year-old Bordeaux which also includes dinner is $595 + tax, for reservations call 954-523-9463 or e-mail andy@winewatch.com.
1986 Bordeaux Wine Tasting – A Study of 40 Year Old Bordeaux
Saturday, January 31, 2026
7:30 PM
1986 Chateau La Mission Haut Brion Pessac Leognan
1986 Chateau Margaux Margaux
1986 Chateau Ducru Beaucaillou St Julien
1986 Chateau Gruaud-Larose Saint-Julien
1986 Chateau Talbott Saint Julien
1986 Chateau Lafite Rothschild Pauillac
1986 Chateau Mouton Rothschild Pauillac
Chateau Pichon Comtesse de Lalande Pauillac
1986 Chateau Pichon-Longueville au Baron de Pichon-Longueville Pauillac
1986 Chateau Meyney Saint Estephe
1986 Chateau Montrose Saint Estephe
Menu
Selection of Cheese and Charcuterie
Lions Main Mushroom Soup with Amontillado Sherry and Crème Fraiche
Beef Tartar Served Over Bone Marrow with Whole Wheat Toast and Truffle Aioli
Duck Confit with Sweet Potato Mash and Bordeaux Current Demi
Vanilla Bean Crème Brulee with Berries
The fee for this tasting is $595 + tax, for reservations call 954-523-9463 or e-mail andy@winewatch.com . Please let us know when you make your reservations if you have any food allergies or aversions and chefs Toni and Dani will be happy to accommodate you.
All the 1986 Vintage Bordeaux in the store on SALE!!
1986 Chateau Ducru Beaucaillou St Julien
Price: $705.00 Your Price: $620.40 Quantity in Stock: 2
(94 Points) Medium brick in color with a touch of brown, the 1986 Ducru-Beaucaillou reveals growing notes of dried mulberries, kirsch and raisin cake with nuances of celery salt, dried bay leaves, truffles and charcuterie plus hints of old leather sofa and fallen leaves. Medium to full-bodied, the palate has quite a powerful structure with firm, chewy tannins and bold freshness supporting the muscular, dried berries flavors, finishing long with a dried mint kick. Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
1986 Chateau Gruaud-Larose Saint-Julien
Price: $250.00 Your Price: $220.00 Quantity in Stock: 11
(97 Points) Both vintages of Gruaud-Larose absolutely stand out in this lineup, and I recommend them both for thoroughly enjoyable drinking today. This was pretty monolithic when young and evolved very slowly. It's still showing tons of black fruits with tobacco, coffee and truffle. Chewy tannins are still evident, with everything clearly signposting a great vintage from legendary winemaker Georges Pauli. 3% Petit Verdot completes the blend. (For Decanter) Jane Anson, Review Date: 05/2019
1986 Chateau Haut-Brion, Pessac-Leognan, France Magnum
Price: $2250.00 Sale Price: $1750.00 Quantity in Stock: 4
(94 Points) This wine continues to be backward, but the bouquet is beginning to develop secondary nuances from roasted herbs and sweet cigar tobacco to compost, leathery notes, along with plenty of sweet cherry and black currant fruit. I had somewhat higher hopes for it a decade ago. The wine is still youthful, quite pure, medium to full-bodied, but somewhat elevated, austere tannins in the finish at age 16 are starting to make me think they will never become fully integrated. As always, making a judgment call on a wine destined to have a half-century of life is sometimes difficult, given the varying stages it goes through, but I wonder if this wine will turn out to be as profound as I once predicted. Anticipated maturity: 2008-2030. Last tasted, 11/02. Bordeaux Book, 4th Edition, Jan 2003
1986 Chateau Lafite Rothschild Pauillac
Price: $1800.00 Sale Price: $1395.00 Quantity in Stock: 2
(100 points) The 1986 possesses outstanding richness, a deep color, medium body, a graceful, harmonious texture, and superb length. The penetrating fragrance of cedar, chestnuts, minerals, and rich fruit is a hallmark of this wine. Powerful, dense, rich, and tannic, as well as medium to full-bodied, with awesome extraction of fruit, this Lafite has immense potential. Patience is required. Anticipated maturity: 2000-2030. Last tasted 11/94 Bordeaux Book, 3rd Edition Jan 1998 wine advocate
1986 Chateau Margaux Margaux (375ml)
Price: $395.00 Your Price: $347.60 Quantity in Stock: 1
(98 points) A magnificent example of Chateau Margaux and one of the most tannic, backward Margauxs of the last 50 years, the 1986 continues to evolve at a glacial pace. The color is still a dense ruby/purple with just a hint of lightening at the rim. With several hours of aeration, the aromatics become striking, with notes of smoke, toast, creme de cassis, mineral, and white flowers. Very full-bodied, with high but sweet tannin, great purity, and a very masculine, full-bodied style, this wine should prove nearly immortal in terms of its aging potential. It is beginning to budge from its infantile stage and approach adolescence. Anticipated maturity: 2008-2050. Last tasted, 12/02. Bordeaux Book, 4th Edition Jan 2003
1986 Chateau La Mission Haut Brion Pessac Leognan
Price: $999.00 Sale Price: $750.00 Quantity in Stock: 11
(97 points) "An extremely impressive, yet slightly hard wine; still closed, but could be as great as the 1952. Dark ruby in color and very aromatic, with a rich cherry aromas. Full-bodied, with full tannins and plenty of fruit, yet very closed and tight on the finish." Wine Spectator
1986 Chateau Meyney St Estephe
Price: $135.00 Your Price: $118.80 Quantity in Stock: 8
(91 Points) The 1986 vintage of Château Meyney continues to drink beautifully and is smack dab in the center of its plateau of peak maturity. The bouquet is deep and pure, wafting from the glass in a mix of sweet cassis, dark soil tones, cigar wrapper, a dollop of leather, gentle notes of cedar and a smoky topnote. On the palate the wine is full-bodied, complex and very nicely balanced, with a lovely core of pure fruit, fine soil signature and grip, still a bit of backend tannin and fine focus on the long and classy finish. Back in this era, Meyney was one of the best values to be had on the Left Bank and the 1986 continues to cruise along beautifully and shows no signs of slowing down in the near future. (Drink between 2024-2045) John Gilman, Review Date: 07/2024
1986 Chateau Montrose St. Estephe
Price: $275.00 Your Price: $242.00 Quantity in Stock: 10
(95 Points) Wonderful clean berry fruit with currant, light mint and mineral following through to a full, firm palate with long, silky tannins and a mineral, berry and spice aftertaste. Lovely wine. Firm. This is squeaky clean and beautiful. Enjoyable now but better to wait a few years still.--Non-blind Château Montrose vertical. Best after 2007. –JS Wine Spectator Issue: Web Only - 2006
1986 La Dame De Montrose St Estephe
Price: $95.00 Your Price: $83.60 Quantity in Stock: 10
The second wines of the classified growths of the Medoc punch above their weight in a vintage like 1986 and are very rare at 40 years of age as most are sold to restaurants in Europe.
1986 Chateau Mouton Rothschild Pauillac 6 Liter
Price: $15000.00 Your Price: $13200.00 Quantity in Stock: 1
1986 Chateau Mouton Rothschild Pauillac
Price: $1800.00 Sale Price: $1250.00 Quantity in Stock: 16
(100 Points) After stumbling over some wines I thought were high class Bordeaux, I nailed this wine in one of the blind tastings for this article. In most tastings where a great Bordeaux is inserted with California Cabernets, the Bordeaux comes across as drier, more austere, and not nearly as rich and concentrated (California wines are inevitably fruitier and more massive). To put it mildly, the 1986 Mouton-Rothschild held its own (and then some), in a flight that included the Caymus Special Selection, Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Cask 23, Dunn Howell Mountain, and Joseph Phelps Eisele Vineyard. Clearly the youngest looking, most opaque and concentrated wine of the group, it tastes as if it has not budged in development since I first tasted it out of barrel in March, 1987. An enormously concentrated, massive Mouton-Rothschild, comparable in quality, but not style, to the 1982, 1959, and 1945, this impeccably made wine is still in its infancy. Interestingly, when I was in Bordeaux several years ago, I had this wine served to me blind from a magnum that had been opened and decanted 48 hours previously. Even then, it still tasted like a barrel sample! I suspect the 1986 Mouton-Rothschild requires a minimum of 15-20 more years of cellaring; it has the potential to last for 50-100 years! Given the outrageously high prices being fetched by so many of the great 1982s and 1990s (and lest I forget, the 1995 Bordeaux futures), it appears this wine might still be one of the "relative bargains" in the fine wine marketplace. I wonder how many readers will be in shape to drink it when it does finally reach full maturity? The tasting notes for this section are from two single blind tastings, one conducted in May, 1996, in California, and the other in June, 1996, in Baltimore. Wine Advocate # 106, Aug 1996
1986 Chateau Pichon Lalande Comtesse Pauillac 6 Liter
Price: $4950.00 Your Price: $4356.00 Quantity in Stock: 1
1986 Chateau Pichon-Longueville au Baron de Pichon-Longueville Pauillac, France
Price: $395.00 Sale Price: $330.00 Quantity in Stock: 34
1986 Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande, Pauillac (375ml)
Price: $195.00 Your Price: $171.60 Quantity in Stock: 28
(95 Points) Now at 30 years of age, there is a gulf between the two Pichons in this vintage that no longer exists. The 1986 Pichon-Longueville Comtesse de Lalande has long been one of the best wines from the estate alongside the 1982 (even if the first bottle was a little oxidized). The second bottle was representative. It has a classic pencil-lead, cedar-infused nose that rockets from the glass, a subtle floral note developing with time. The palate is medium-bodied with supple red berry fruit, a pinch of white pepper and cedar, structured compared to coeval vintages and perhaps further along its drinking plateau than previous examples. (NM) Wine Advocate, Review Date: 10/2016
1986 Chateau Talbot St. Julien
Price: $195.00 Your Price: $171.60 Quantity in Stock: 12
(96 Points) A fabulous wine, and one of the two greatest Talbots of the last 50 years, this wine still has a very murky garnet/plum/purple color and a spectacular nose of sweet creme de cassis intermixed with freshly ground pepper, melted road tar, herbes de Provence, and beef blood. It is followed by an enormously concentrated wine of full body, layers of concentration and sweet tannin. The wine seems to be just hitting its plateau of maturity, where it should last for at least 10-15 more years. A prodigious Talbot. Anticipated maturity: Now-2020. Last tasted, 6/02. Bordeaux Book, 4th Edition, Jan 2003
The rest of the 40 year old wines in the store on SALE!!
1986 Cakebread Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley
Price: $170.00 Sale Price: $140.00 Quantity in Stock: 1
1986 Duckhorn Cabernet Sauvignon Napa
Price: $170.00 Sale Price: $135.00 Quantity in Stock: 2
1986 Hess Collection Cabernet Sauvignon Napa
Price: $99.00 Sale Price: $75.00 Quantity in Stock: 7
1986 La Jota Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain Selection
Price: $215.00 Sale Price: $165.00 Quantity in Stock: 12
1986 Monticello Vineyards Corley Family Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon Napa, USA
Price: $160.00 Sale Price: $125.00 Quantity in Stock: 2
1986 Ravenswood Merlot Sonoma
Price: $65.00 Your Price: $57.20 Quantity in Stock: 3
1986 Stag's Leap Wine Cellars SLV Cabernet Sauvignon Napa
Price: $250.00 Sale Price: $199.00 Quantity in Stock: 12
1986 Sterling Vineyards Three Palms Vineyard Red Blend Napa
Price: $189.00 Your Price: $166.32 Quantity in Stock: 1
1986 Spottswoode Cabernet Sauvignon Napa
Price: $250.00 Sale Price: $200.00 Quantity in Stock: 3
1986 William Hill Estate Winery Gold Label Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve Napa
Price: $115.00 Sale Price: $95.00 Quantity in Stock: 7
1986 Roberto Anselmi Amarone Recioto della Valpolicella DOCG, Veneto, italy
Price: $225.00 Sale Price: $179.00 Quantity in Stock: 10
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