Drink When, Age until - Haut-Brion, Opus One???

I have bottles of Red

Chateau Haut-Brion 1976

Opus One 1981

Opus One 1982

Opus One 1983

Can anyone tell me when these wines can be open and how long can they be cellared?

Thank You

Stephen

The Opuses (Opi? Opera?) are heading over the hill and should be drunk up. The Haut Brion should still be OK - it's been a few years since I last had one, and it was perfectly mature then.

Get out that corkscrew!

Opus one is overestimated, get it over with!!

I have not tried this one yet, but generally I am finding 1976 to be a good milder vintage ready to drink. Even Lafite, the wine of the vintage by many accounts, is at full maturity. This is one to drink soon, and this is a great vintage to drink with a meal as the wines are not overwhelmingly huge.

I have zero experience with Opus but I can tell you 1982 is fading fast for other top California wines. Can still be good, but ready to drink for sure. Based on what I have heard I would drink the other two soon too, but I have no personal experience to draw on there.

Hope this helps! And please do post some TNs when you try these. I would be especially interested to hear how the Haut Brion was.

Take care,

Tom. Tom 01 CBR600F4i

I have opened a Ducru Beaucaillou from the same vintage recently, and it was almost perfect, with still quite a deal of acidity. You should keep your HB for no more than 5 years, I would say.

Cheers

Clive Coates says to drink up the '81 and '82 and that the 1983 will go to 2003. Of the 1981, he says, 'A little dull', the 1982, 'Unremarkable' and the 1983, 'Good'. This translates into American English as 'Gobs of tannin, stunning purity, woodsmoke, cedar, earth, tobacco, essence of racoon's anal glands. 103/100'.

Caspar

And Caspar, you would know...

A further comment on the Opus.

It was never meant to be a long lived wine, just a well made 'flagship' wine that you didn't have to wait years to enjoy.

Somehow, many people equate price and relative prestige of a wine with ageworthiness. I have even seen people trying to sell older chards that rated highly, figuring that they must be worth more now because they are older! In this case, even with cab based wines, it just ain't so.

I have done verticals of this wine in all the vintages produced on several occasions - of the 80s vintages, only the 87 is holding well, IMHO.

If you want an American cab made a bit more in the way of an ageable Bordeaux, I'd point you toward Dominus, which seems to be more long lived, although again, based on extensive tastings, I wouldn't hold many of the 80s vintages. An 85 tasted recently was less than stellar, for instance.

Agreed. The newer Dominuses (or should that be Domini?) seem to be much better prepared for the long haul, but I am not too keen on some of the older ones. They hold up okay, but fail to improve and evolve in the way one would hope IMHO.

For truly consistently ageworthy California Cabs I am very big on Montelena and Dunn. 1987 Montelena is still a massive tannic monster, ala 1982 Bordeaux, but holds incredible promise.

Dunn Cabs are also worth having, even if only to see if they will ever mature! The 1986 Howell Mountain is a stellar massive wine from an otherwise dreary hard vintage in California and still nowhere near ready. Yet the wine still retains all the fruit! No signs of drying out at all.

Not much left, but I agree it may be the best ever, and I am also a big fan.

I have a Dunn 1995 Howell that may outlast us all!

Tom, You have of course singled out the two finest estates in Napa. I had a bottle of the '78 Montelena last year, and it was still in fine form: rich, fruity and complex with no hints of decline. And, Randy Dunn's wine are as near immortal as a California Cabernet is ever likely to be.

I wouldn't characterize 1986 quite as harshly as you have. At the time, the hoopla surrounding '84 (rich, fruity and forward) and '85 (tight, structured and deep) overshadowed the '86s, which were hard and lean by comparison (though still among the deeper of the '80s vintages). In retrospect, though, the '84s faded much faster than most had expected (somewhat reminiscent of the '74s before them) and the majority of '85s dried out before they opened up and never really developed as the initial buzz had predicted that they would. Meanwhile, the '86s look better by comparison, if merely because expectations were never that high to begin with... Nonetheless, the '86 Dunns (both Napa and Howell Mountain) were among the best of the vintage. We opened the '86 Napa two years ago, and it still had years (decades?) of life left ahead of it. Fruity, deep and young young young. What an experience!

Mark Lipton