PR: '92 Chateau Leoville Barton

[Van The Man]

1992 Chateau Leoville Barton; St. Julien, Bordeaux (FR) - $16.99

Good color with excellent limpidity and clarity. No sediment anywhere on the bottle or in the bottom of the wine. Pretty nose with plenty of black cherry, tea and leather. Just starting to come forward with some tertiary flavors of mushroom and forest floor. Quite a noticeable dose of oak as well which surprised me. On the palate, starting to show it's pedigree. The wine is drying out with radically faded cherry, too much oak, some gripping acidity and overbearing, green and firm yet not particularly coarse tannins. Clearly, the fruit is not ripe and age is now an enemy for this wine. The backbone and structure of the wine is out of balance with the fruit and the wine nosed MUCH better than it drank.

I can't see the wine "improving" any at all given that this wine was stored properly, although I can see that it was starting to change a bit. At it's 10 year Bday, it might exhibit more tertiary flavors that us fans of old Claret cherrish, but there will be a lot of green tannins and acids blocking the enjoyment IMO.

This wine has been one I've REALLY enjoyed over the years as it was a bargain and up until this point, it was drinking really nicely. Back when all classified Bordeaux was much less expensive, these were nice wines to have to drink in their youth. Now however, they're too highly priced to really consider buying for early, casual drinking.

Anyway, I will always fondly remember the '92 Leoville Barton. Not as much as I'll remember my '89, '90, '94, '95 and '96 I'm sure, but I'll still remember paying next to nothing for it and marveling at the value it provided. <g>

Now, if I can just keep my hands off the others for a while. Wait, I do have some '88 which needs to be drunk! :-)