Chateau Latour, 1989 Red Wine
Pauillac 1er Grand Cru Classe.
Bottle size: 75cl
Price:
$773.20 USD
Description
The 1989 Château Latour is a well-regarded vintage from one of Bordeaux’s most esteemed estates, located in the Pauillac appellation. Château Latour is known for producing full-bodied, long-lived wines and the 1989 is considered to be one of the finest examples from the 1980's. The 1989 vintage is notable because it was a particularly warm and dry year in Bordeaux, resulting in wines with rich fruit flavors and a high potential for aging.
Tasting Notes: Teh wine is deep garnet with some signs of aging. On teh Nose there are rich aromas of dark fruits like blackcurrants, blackberries, along with notes of tobacco, cedar, and graphite.
Palate: Full-bodied with firm tannins. Flavors of cassis, leather, and a slight spiciness are prominent. As the wine matures, it also develops more tertiary characteristics, such as earthiness and dried herbs. Finish: Long and complex, with lingering dark fruit and mineral notes.
Aging Potential: This wine was built to last for several decades. If properly stored, it can continue to develop and improve, reaching its peak even after 30+ years. Many bottles from this vintage still show excellent structure and complexity as of now.
Food Pairing: The 1989 Château Latour pairs beautifully with rich meats such as lamb, beef, or game, especially when served with roasted vegetables or mushroom-based sauces.
Condition
Very slight scuffs to labels
Reviews
The 1989 vintage of Château Latour was not considered a great year for this superb property, which was purported to have started a mini-slump after the release of the brilliant 1982 vintage at the estate. However, though I did not buy this wine on release (believing the critics of the time and their assessment of its relative inferiority), on the couple of occasions where I have been lucky enough to drink it again in recent times, it has been clear that this wine was underrated at the outset and really is an excellent vintage of Latour. The most recent bottle was getting close to full bloom, but not quite there yet, offering up a deep and complex bouquet of cassis, sweet dark berries, cigar ash, Latour’s classic gravelly, dark soil signature, cedary oak and a smoky topnote. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied and plenty deep at the core, with firm, well-integrated tannins, excellent mineral drive, very good acids for the vintage and a very long, balanced and complex finish. This is getting close to really drinking well as it closes in on its thirtieth birthday, but it is an old school Latour and will still be an even better drink at age forty than it is today. (Drink between 2018-2085)
95
John Gilman, View From the Cellar (80), April 2019