1986 Chateau Meyney St. Estephe

(91 points) The 1986 Château Meyney has been one of the great values of the vintage since its release and it has fulfilled all of its early promise and continues to cruise along very well indeed. To give younger readers some idea of just how good a value this wine was on release, I sold it for $11.99 a bottle and one received ten percent off if they bought a case. Needless to say, I sold a ton of cases of this wine. Today, it is drinking very nicely, offering up a complex bouquet of cassis, dark berries, a nice touch of new leather, tobacco leaf, gravelly soil tones and a topnote of cigar smoke. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied, complex and still gently chewy, with nicely buried, suave tannins and fine focus and grip on the long and well-balanced finish. This really is a very good example of the vintage.  (9/2020) John Gilman