Haut-Bages Liberal 2009

Haut-Bages Liberal 1986

92 pointsJohn Gilman

“The 1986 vintage at Haut Bages Libral is really outstanding and this has to be one of the great sleepers to be found in the Left Bank in this fine year. The bouquet is deep, pure and vibrant, offering up scents of cassis, black cherries, tobacco leaf, a bit of tariness, gravelly soil tones and a discreet base of smoky new wood. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied, complex and quite tangy, with lovely focus and grip, a good core and a long, ripely tannic and well-balanced finish. This is still a few years away from really fully blossoming, but it is not a bad drink today by any stretch of the imagination. Drink between 2018-2050.” (8/2016)

91 pointsWine Spectator

Remarkably intense and lean with spicy cedar, red cherry, plum and currant flavors that are crisp, ripe and rich. Has the tannic structure for long aging.(5/1989)

90 pointsRobert Parker’s Wine Advocate

The percentage of new oak casks used at Haut-Bages-Liberal was increased and the selection process tightened, and the result in 1986 is their finest wine since the 1975, and certainly one of the best wines ever made at the property. Dark ruby/purple, with an expansive bouquet of plums, sweet toasty oak, and black currants, this dense, full-bodied, chewy wine has a suppleness that will allow it to be drunk in the early nineties. But it also has the