1985 Château Cheval Blanc***
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Tasting notes
Clearly mature and probably in the back half of its prime drink window, the 1985 Château Cheval Blanc is medium ruby-hued and has a beautiful classic Cheval nose of ripe red and black fruits, spicy herbs, underbrush, and savory flowers. It's medium-bodied, with a solid, sweet core of fruit and just a round, supple, seamless profile that is such a joy to drink. I would lean toward enjoying bottles over the coming decade, but it will have a gradual decline thereafter. Drink 2025-2035.
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Medium garnet-brick colored, the 1985 Cheval Blanc sashays out of the glass with provocative notes of sandalwood, cinnamon stick, cardamom, dried lavender and wilted roses over a core of new leather, cigar box, prunes, raisin cake and dusty soil. Medium-bodied, soft and silken textured, it has tons of mature, melt-in-your-mouth flavors and a very long exotic spice-laced finish.
The 1985 Cheval Blanc has always been one of the picks of the vintage for what was a fecund decade for the Saint-Émilion. This example shows similarly to previous bottles. It has a fragrant bouquet with sandalwood, clove and chestnut, maybe here even a touch of brettanomyces? It is only slight. The palate is beautifully balanced with melted tannin. The Cabernet Franc in full flight – hints of bell pepper and cedar, a surfeit of fruit. Maybe it lacks the precision of more recent vintages but how can you resist its charm. Impossible! It is a wonderful wine, but I wonder...was its heyday around the turn of the millennium? Tasted blind at Chez Brunce lunch.
Served blind at the end of a run of Pomerols and quite at home in this sequence but denser, more savoury, a little gamey and still so alive! Great concentration. (JR)