Question about a french red wine

[jbmarcus]

When my son was born in 1990, my brother in law gave my wife and I a gift of french red wine. The wine is (I'm reading from the label)Chateau Gruaud Larose Saint Julien 1986. At the top of the label it says Grand Cru Classe. At the time, he said to open the wine on my sons 21st birthday, cause he said it would be to bitter if opened earlier. He also said that this was an extraordinary year for this wine. My question is would this wine be ok if I opened it today, and can any one tell me what the value of this wine might be?

[Innkeeper]

Hi JB, and welcome to the Wine Board. I don't agree with your brother-in-law. There are three good reasons for drinking it now. First, and will probably take heat for this, but I would not trust any Bordeaux from the git go to last sixteen to twenty one years. Sure many do, but it's the luck of the draw. Second, and many people have found this out, your son may not like wine. Thirdly, although you have an excellent wine, won't fault b-i-l on that, it is either at its peak, or on its downslope.

If I was going to try to hold a wine for a child's twenty first birthday, which I wouldn't do if I could it all over again, it would be either an Italian Brunello or Barolo, or a big California Petite Sirah such as Stag's Leap.