It has always been my impression that the 1985 vintage was Bernard Burgaud’s greatest year, as some changes took place here in the later vintages of the 1980s and early 1990s that seemed to conspire against the wines reaching the magical peak of the 1985. I sold a fair bit of this wine in my early merchant days and knew the wine very well over the first decade of its life in the market, but had not seen a bottle in many, many years prior to our San Francisco tasting in August. The wine has aged very gracefully and offers up a complex bouquet of cassis, black cherries, leather, woodsmoke, a bit of blood, lovely soil tones and hung game. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied, complex and still quite solid at the core, with fine balance and grip, still a touch of backend tannin and very good length on the finish. This does not quite possess the breed at maturity of wines like the Jamet of Champet Côte Brune, but it is a delightful drink and still has plenty of life ahead of it. 2016-2040.

By comparison with the elegantly wrought wines Burgaud produced in previous vintages the 1985 is a corpulent dense powerful wine that is fully mature. Dark ruby-colored with moderate amber at the edge this wine has a spicy cassis herb and licorice-scented nose good acidity and excellent depth and length. Anticipated maturity: now-2000. Last tasted 1/94.