It is tough to put into words how much I love this wine, alongside its slightly more concentrated cousin, Leoville Las Cases from the same vintage. They are both classic examples of what the very best of Bordeaux should be. The Lynch Bages is loaded with everything you want from mature Pauillac: cedar, cigar box, menthol, a touch of red fruit and the kind of feeling that you are finally home. There is no outlying tannin but is slightly lighter in style than both the 1982 and 1986. In the two dozen or so times that I have drunk this wine it has never been anything short of spectacular. Textbook. There is no benefit from waiting, but there is also no rush

I tasted the 1985 Lynch-Bages on two occasions. Firstly, at the property, I am perplexed by its loose-knit nose and disjointed palate. I put a question mark against my score because a dozen-plus encounters over the years were far superior. A second bottle at a private dinner in London reinstates my adoration for this forerunner for the dazzling successes at the end of the decade. Melted tar, wild mint and pure black fruit blossom on the nose and, like previous bottles, seem to gain intensity and delineation with aeration. The palate is medium-bodied with refined, pliant tannins that frame truffle-infused black fruit. It is paradigmatic of the vintage, so elegant and sensual instead of tannic, a little savory towards its caressing vintage. What's not to love? -- Neal Martin

I have had great and less great bottles of this vintage over the years. The 1985 was the magazine’s Wine of the Year in 1988. Today it shows loads of fruit, with blackberry, licorice and fresh herb character. Full, round and velvety. Long and delicious.--Lynch-Bages non-blind vertical. Drink now. –JS

From well-stored bottles, the 1985 Lynch-Bages continues to offer immensely charming drinking, bursting with aromas of sweet cassis and red berries mingled with cedarwood and loamy soil. Medium-bodied, supple and suave, with a sweet core of fruit and melting tannins, its seamless, elegant and expressive profile makes it hard to resist. - William Kelley

The good examples of 1985 Lynch Bages are beautiful bottles of wine. The deep and very complex nose offers up a very classy blend of cassis, dark berries, cigar ash, lovely, gravelly soil tones, espresso and a delicate topnote of petroleum jelly. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and beautifully balanced, with a fine core of fruit, lovely soil inflection, moderate tannins and excellent length and grip on the tangy and very finely focused finish. 93+