The 1986 Reserve, sensational when tasted prior to bottling, tastes like a completely different wine today. Dark ruby-colored, with a kosher pickle barrel-scented nose, this medium-bodied wine possesses harsh tannin and shrill levels of acidity. Rarely in 18 years of tasting barrel and bottled wines have I seen such an appalling discrepancy in my tasting notes. Two bottles from my cellar were identical in their vegetal, high acid profiles. Shame on me, for I gave this wine superlative pre-bottling reviews, and put my money where my mouth was ... I purchased it too!The tasting notes for this section are from two single blind tastings, one conducted in May, 1996, in California, and the other in June, 1996, in Baltimore.

I remember how impressive Carmenet's 1986 Proprietary Red Wine tasted out of barrel, but this particular bottle, procured directly from the winery, is nearly a failure. It exhibits a mature color with considerable brown and rust in its medium garnet color, deep, woodsy, foresty aromas, lean, frightfully high acids, a hollow middle, and no extract, concentration, or finish. Every time I have re-tasted this wine over recent years it has been worse than the time before. Can it really be this bad? The tasting notes for this section are from two single blind tastings, one conducted in May, 1996, in California, and the other in June, 1996, in Baltimore.