Spiced sandalwood, white pepper, saffron, cigar box, oyster shell salinity, orange peel, and still juicy blackcurrant and blueberry fruit, even as it heads towards 35 years old. Utterly gorgeous, effortless even, the word beguiling comes out of nowhere. Love this, and provides a glimpse into what this wine can acheive when you are lucky enough to catch it at the right moment. 50% new oak, Michel Delon owner. Harvest September 5 to 25, after a hot dry year. Jane Anson Dec 2022 - Inside Bordeaux

An estate with the natural power and freshness in its soils of Las Cases is always worth looking at in hot vintages like 1989. This is showing fleshy black fruits, spice, cigar box and rich seams of black truffle, fully mature, almost more so than the 1970 if you can believe that. Gentle tannins, mouthwatering, a wine that sits within the finessed personality of St Julien more than many Las Cases. 50% new oak, harvest September 5 to 25. Michel Delon owner, 3rd generation of the family to do so, renowned for his exceptional cellar, and who liked to exchange cases of his own wine with Burgundian winemakers such as Domaine des Comtes Lafon in Meursault. This bottle not showing quite as well as the one I had last year (in fact we opened two bottles to find the best one), but it's worth the gamble if you can track one down.

Very ripe, with raisin and dried fruits on the nose. You can smell the sun-dried grapes. Full-bodied, delivering firm tannins and a very fresh palate. Long and flavorful, offering currant, berries and all sorts of dark fruits, but turns lightly earthy and floral. This is a thoroughly complex wine. Just starting to really open into the mature 20-year-old wine it is, but such a great life ahead of it. Muscular.--'89/'99 Bordeaux blind retrospective (2009). James Suckling

Bright medium red-ruby. Perfumed aromas of blackcurrant, boysenberry and bilberry, with hints of tobacco and forest floor. Very smooth, round and long, this medium-bodied smooth, very accessible red enters fruity and suave, then is slightly more diffuse in the middle palate, and finishes long and suave. It’s an excellent red Bordeaux from one of the left bank’s six best properties, one with a long track record of spectacular wines, but the slightly high crop levels typical of the 1989 vintage shows in the way of a little less concentration than is normal for this famous wine. Drinking spectacularly well now and utterly delicious now, wonderfully graceful in the style of LLC, it will still age very well for decades. Drinking window: 2024-2040. Ian D'Agata Terroirsense.com Jan 2024

This bottle of 1989 Léoville Las Cases is the second encountered within four months and is easily the best showing. It has a beautiful bouquet with a touch of menthol on the nose, leaning towards Pauillac with its vivacious cassis fruit. There's little of the ferrous note from the previous bottle. The palate is medium-bodied and the most youthful I have encountered. It's pure with supple black and blueberry fruit and fine tannins. It fans out wonderfully. As I have said, over a dozen bottles through the years, and this is a frustrating Las Cases to pin down. But when it's on, it's on. Tasted at the 1989 dinner at Piccolino in London.

I thought the 1989 Château Leoville Las Cases showed brilliantly, with a classy, elegant, regal feel that's very much in the style of the estate. Certainly in its prime drink window, it has lots of pure cassis and darker fruits as well as graphite, scorched earth, tobacco, and hints of saddle leather. Medium-bodied on the palate, it's balanced, has a pure, layered mouthfeel, resolved tannins, and outstanding length. While it doesn't hit the same heights as the 1982, 2000, 2003, 2009, or more recent vintages, it's a classic example of this terroir that will continue to evolve gracefully for another two decades.

One of the most youthful wines of the vintage, the 1989 Léoville Las Cases unwinds in the decanter and glass with aromas of blackcurrant and pencil shavings, framed by a discrete patina from its aging in oak. Medium to full-bodied, deep and tightly wound, it's impressively pure and vibrant, though it lacks the mid-palate plenitude of the vintage's best wines, displaying a touch of tannic asperity on the finish. I wouldn't be surprised to see it continue to improve with further aging, though my sense is that the Cabernet Sauvignon might have been picked a little prematurely in this vintage.

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate 01/01/2003
Dark ruby (a far less saturated color than the 1990, for example), this wine offers up a somewhat internationally styled nose of new oak and ripe black currant fruit, with a hint of mineral and graphite. The wine is a medium weight, relatively elegant style of wine without nearly the power, density, and layers of concentration that the 1990 possesses. Like so many 1989s, there is a feeling that the selection was not as strict as it could have been, or that the harvest occurred perhaps a few days earlier than it should have to achieve full phenolic ripeness. This wine will continue to improve for at least another 15 or more years, and while it is an outstanding wine , it is hardly a profound example of Leoville Las Cases. Anticipated maturity: Now-2016. Last tasted, 12/01.

My notes on the 1989 and 1990 wines have been consistent over the last three years. The 1989 continues to lose ground, although it is obviously an outstanding wine, while the 1990 continues to escalate in quality. The 1989 tasted California-like in its ripe, sweet, black-cherry fruit, nicely-integrated, toasty new oak, and clean, pure winemaking style. A tighter, more compact finish is the result of elevated tannin, but this is an outstanding, rich, medium-weight Las Cases that tastes less well-endowed than I originally predicted. It is built more along the lines of the classy, elegant 1985 than the blockbuster 1982 and 1986. The wine is still youthful, with no amber at the edge of its healthy deep ruby/purple color. It will improve for another 8-12 years, and then plateau, offering very fine drinking over the subsequent two decades.
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60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Merlot, 12% Cabernet Franc, 3% Petit Verdot. Brick red. Lots of mushroom and leaf mulch on the nose and palate and still a lovely fruit sweetness even if the primary fruit has gone. Extremely fine grip to the tannins, still has perfect balance and lots of youthful energy even with the mature flavours. (JH)