1999 Chateau Haut-Brion

Damn Futronic,
You've been drinking "well" lately. I'm glad you call these Bordeaux like you see them. People are way too impressed by the image of these wines and score them accordingly. I have yet to be moved by a first growth, but I've never had a wine that's a good performance of a first growth in a top vintage that's mature.

Dan,

Yes, I've been pretty fortunate with the wine I've been drinking as of late. The first growths were all part of the offline we had last weekend in Windsor with our friends from Michigan.

These wines were just way too young to show anything really special - especially if you compare to the other top wines we had on the weekend (1989 Lynch-Bages and 1982 Cos d'Estournel). Furthermore, these wines were nowhere near, and in my opinion, will never get close to the previous first growths I tasted, the 1989 Haut-Brion and 1989 Mouton-Rothschild.

Drank over New Year's. Decanted about 30 minutes. I found this very tannic and concentrated, but developing nicely. Really pretty secondary characteristics and the finish was more medium/long length. This wine still has plenty of life yet and appears to be developing into a classic Bordeaux. I scored it a 93 and it was very much enjoyed by everyone.