The 1989 tasted California-like in its ripe, sweet, black cherry fruit, nicely-integrated, toasty new oak, and clean, pure winemaking style. A tighter, more compact finish is the result of elevated tannin, but this is an outstanding, rich, medium-weight Las Cases that tastes less well-endowed than I originally predicted. It is built more along the lines of the classy, elegant 1985 than the blockbuster 1982 and 1986. The wine is still youthful, with no amber at the edge of its healthy deep ruby/purple color. It will improve for another 8-12 years, and then plateau, offering very fine drinking over the subsequent two decades. I overrated this wine from cask. As appealing as I still find it, it lacks the concentration and intensity I originally thought it possessed. Last tasted 11/96, Drink Date: 2004-2024 (Robert Parker, The Wine Advocate, 3rd Edition, Bordeaux Book, Jan 1998, 91 Pts)
Dark ruby (a far less saturated color than the 1990, for example), this wine offers up a somewhat internationally styled nose of new oak and ripe black currant fruit, with a hint of mineral and graphite. The wine is a medium weight, relatively elegant style of wine without nearly the power, density, and layers of concentration that the 1990 possesses. Like so many 1989s, there is a feeling that the selection was not as strict as it could have been, or that the harvest occurred perhaps a few days earlier than it should have to achieve full phenolic ripeness. This wine will continue to improve for at least another 15 or more years, and while it is an outstanding wine , it is hardly a profound example of Leoville Las Cases. (Robert Parker, The Wine Advocate, 4th Edition, Bordeaux Book, Jan 2003, 90 Pts)
The 1989 Léoville Las-Cases came from a bottle that was recorked in 2017 at the property. The bouquet is rather muffled, and quite rustic and earthy in style, missing the breeding that Jean-Hubert Delon instills nowadays. The palate is medium-bodied with soft tannin. Rustic red fruit mixes with iron ore, orange peel, game and bacon fat notes. Old-school in style but missing the backbone and tension, the precision synonymous with this estate. Overall, it is slightly underperforming in the context of the vintage. Drinking window: 2019-2025 (Neal Martin, Sept 2019, 88 Pts)
