The 1986 Haut-Brion, served blind at a private dinner in Bordeaux, comes from an ex-château bottle. I must admit that I spent a few moments marveling at the bouquet. It's intense and Margaux-like, perhaps more like a 1985 in style with precocious red fruit, cedar, kirsch and veins of cassis. It blossoms in the glass, revealing excellent minerality, yet never loses that curious Margaux-inspired allure. The palate has finally mellowed like many 1986s appear to be doing. This Haut-Brion is framed by fine tannins, suppler than previous bottles and maybe more filigree. Beautifully balanced from start to finish, it delivers disarming purity on the finish. Ladies and gentlemen, the 1986 Haut-Brion is ready for business.

A seductive mix of brambly autumnal fruits, black truffles, graphite and cigar box, this is absolutely ready to drink now and yet will continue to unwind and deliver for decades to come. The tannic structure is still noticeable, even at 32 years old, and it propels the fruit forward to a fresh, minty finish. I tasted this with a lovely group from the Napa Valley Reserve who were on a trip to Bordeaux in October.

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate 01/01/2003

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.

The 1986 Haut-Brion, which I thought should be fully mature by now, remains a backward, highly concentrated, powerful wine with more noticeable tannin than most top vintages. The wine does possesses a tell-tale smoky tobacco and sweet black currant-scented nose, in addition to subtle new oak and minerals scents. This medium to full-bodied, rich, intensely smoky wine has still not reached its plateau of maturity. It is unquestionably the wine of the vintage for Graves, and not far off the pace of the great 1986 first-growth Medocs. Anticipated maturity: 2000-2015. Last tasted 7/97.
(93)

While the 1986 Château Haut-Brion isn’t going to hit the heights of some of the greats here, it’s still a gorgeously complete, classic Haut Brion. Needing an hour of air to start to open up, it’s still healthy ruby (very little bricking) but is followed by textbook Haut-Brion darker fruits, smoke tobacco, gravelly earth, and cold fireplace. While it starts out firm and angular, it slowly opens up and picks up charm and sweetness, offering medium to full-bodied richness, terrific overall balance, still present tannins, and certainly outstanding length. It’s not going to get better, but it clearly has another decade of prime drinking and, I suspect, a gradual decline thereafter.

Lively and rich and fully mature. Less density than the Mouton 1986 served blind alongside this wine. It hits the palate with sweet earthiness but leaves it with a firm dryness. Very appetising and nuanced. (JR)