92+ The 1986 Pape Clément was the first vintage of this wine in many years to garner any positive attention from Robert Parker, and the early promise it showed out of the blocks remains in evidence, but the rather tough structure of the ’86 vintage must be waited out before this wine really starts to deliver a lot of pleasure on the palate. The first rate nose offers up a really lovely blend of sweet cassis, dark berries, black truffles, Cuban cigars, gravelly soil tones, a touch of new wood and a bit of cigar ash in the upper register. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and shows off a great core of sweet fruit, with still some firm tannins buttoning up the backend, good acids and very fine length and grip on the focused finish. This still seems right on track for an excellent apogee of drinkability, but it remains too young for primetime drinking at age twenty-five.

Big, broad, lush, supple and tannic, this is a rich, complex, dramatic wine with layers of cedar, plum, and currant flavors that are sharply focused, elegant and subtle. Delicious to drink now if you can look past the soft tannins. It's a solid candidate for a decade's cellaring. Drink 1995 to 2003.

Tasted at the property, the 1986 Pape-Clement has a really quite gorgeous bouquet with bundles of black plum and cranberry aromas, plush and perfumed, wilted violets and rose petals seeming to spring up everywhere. The palate is medium-bodied with a slightly medicinal opening. This is supple in texture, perhaps not quite delivering the complexity of the aromatics, with tar and hickory tincturing the black fruit, good depth if not nuance on the generous, medicinal finish. Sure, it's old school Pessac-Leognan, but you would happily finish off a bottle and it has the guts and substance to give another 10-20 years of pleasure. Tasted July 2016. - Neal Martin

The 1986 Pape Clément is a vintage that I had never tasted previously and came in a half-bottle. Upon first opening, the aromatics display a bit of funk, but it improves over the course of an hour, gaining more clarity and freshness, offering attractive scents of mulberry, roasted chestnut, Cuban cigars and damp autumn leaves. The palate is not complex, and yet it is balanced. Slightly rustic compared to its peers in the Médoc, it has ample weight, and though it’s rough around the edges, it wears its heart on its sleeve. Decayed red fruit, quite savoury with maybe a touch of brettanomyces, this Pessac-Léognan is still trotting along nicely. That said, I would not leave it too much longer before broaching. - Neal Martin