This is the first time I've reviewed the 1986 Art Series Chardonnay for this publication, but it's far from the first time I've enjoyed a glass of it. Like all wines of this age, there is a wide variety of colors /conditions between bottles, and here the glass in front of me is still showing glints of green. On the nose of this remarkable wine, you get marmalade on hot white toast, white chocolate, a hint of coffee grounds and red apple skins, with white pepper, roasted peach and creme br?lée top. In the mouth, the wine remains pert and structurally tight. It is salty, rich and undulating and tells a remarkable story of vines that were in the ground 11 years at that point (block 20 planted 1975, other blocks to follow two years later) and perhaps into their seventh or eighth crop. They were clearly meant to be in this place. It aged in 100% new French oak (in the main, tight-grain Bordelais coopers, supported by Burgundian coopers). This wine was moved from a cork bottle to a screw-cap bottle in 2007. I asked if bottles were then topped with a vintage 2005 Art Series Chardonnay, and the answer was that sacrificial, in-condition bottles of 1986 were identified and used as a topping wine, in order to keep the wine as close to its roots as possible. I love drinking this wine, especially when it looks this good. As for when to drink it ... hard to say. It is mature but it is not slowing down. Your call. I try and find one every year.