Who needs a special occasion to drink 30-years old Bordeaux? Drinking Château Talbot 1989 is a special occasion!
This bottle comes from Château Talbot, located in Saint-Julien, on the right bank of Bordeaux. The estate has a rich history dating back centuries. Its name originates with Connétable Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, governor of Guyenne, and a famous English military commander of the 15th century. For several decades it belonged to the Marquis of Aux and was purchased in 1918 by Désiré Cordier.
In 1855, in preparation for the World Fair in Paris, Emperor Napoleon III ordered to rank the wines of Bordeaux. The purpose of this list was to give World Fair visitors a guide to the best wineries of Bordeaux because there were so many of them. After all, there was no internet, and there were no stars or points to check. So if your winery made a list, you were golden.
At that time, Médoc and Graves established a long-standing reputation as the best place in Bordeaux to buy wine from. Château Talbot made a list and was promoted as a fourth classified growth of Saint-Julien.
Vintage
1989 Bordeaux wine was a record-setting year in many ways. The start of 1989 started as a disaster with a wet spring followed by the mild winter conditions. But then things changed rather quickly, and by May, the vines were sprinting three weeks ahead of schedule.
The summer was sunny, hot, and dry. Last time Bordeaux experienced such heat was half a century ago. Early budding, even flowering and hot summer led to another record – one of the earliest harvests in history that started on August 31, 1989.
Moreover, the length of time allotted to pick set another record. While most chateaux finished picking by late September, a few growers stretched the harvest to October 15! Thanks to even flowering in the spring, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot grapes performed well, and there was a lot of wine too.
Château Talbot 1989
So how was Château Talbot 1989, and was it worth the 30-years wait?
We say yes, although our friend who shared this bottle with us felt it was best in 1994 because he tasted it every five years since the release.
Luckily for us, we tasted it for what it is now, and that’s how we’re going to remember it.
Color
As expected for a wine of this age, it had garnet color with ruby tones. Surprisingly, the color was quite intense for 30-years old wine. Red wines tend to lose depth of color over time and become paler.
Aromas
At first, we sense some barnyard notes, and it felt that wine was what called “closed” and needed more decanting time than 2 hours. After ten minutes in a glass, it opened up with aromas of plum, blackberry, and leafy black currant. Then cassis, violets, and pink lilac flowers followed.
Flavors
On the palate, Talbot sang in unison with the nose. Flavors of cassis (black currant liqueur), plum, cherry and touch of leafy tobacco. Tannins are still there, but the fruit is leading the way.
Verdict
Obviously, it’s hard to be objective when one tastes expensive aged Bordeaux. Still, we try to be fair.
Overall, we liked the wine for its yet flower and fruit-driven aromas despite the age. The medium-bodied body was a bit thin with certain dryness and tannins overshadowing some of the fruit we sensed on the nose.
On its own, it’s a great wine, and we would enjoy it again in a heartbeat. Still, we had a chance to compare to the other three 30-years old Bordeaux the same evening, and Château Talbot 1989 came second for most of us.
It would be great if we had a time machine to jump back to 1994 and taste it with our friend at five-year intervals. The second opinion never hurts. Oh, well!
Conclusion
As you pick your next bottle, keep in mind the words of Désiré Cordier, the guy who bought Talbot in 1918. He famously said (backed by statistics) that in Saint Julien in particular, and in Médoc in general, that life expectancy was higher than the national average. “It would be disrespectful to our national drink to ignore such a comparison in favor of our good wines. The arguments supported by the figures show that the Médoc, and more particularly Saint-Julien, is the country proper to octogenarians, which proves most conclusively that wine – and by that meaning, good wine is understood – is as I said, the elixir of long life!”
Now in the 21st century, the scientists in consensus with what French knew all along.