Very dry and tannic. Treads the line between elegant and boring. Some good cherry and blackberry flavors erupt midpalate, but it’s really a fairly lean, earthy Cabernet. The score reflects where it could end up in, say, eight years. ——S.H.(6/1/2011)—— 87

Tasted But Not Recommended

For nearly twenty years I have lamented the compact, sterile filtered style produced at Clos du Val. While the 1986's color is still a youthful deep ruby, the bouquet offers only vague, earthy, curranty fruit notes. On the palate, the wine is extremely shrill, with high acidity, some spice, and compressed, medium-bodied, astringently tannic texture and flavors. Although it is slightly above average, it seems to be frozen in place. While it will keep for another decade, it will never provide complexity or joy ... a testament to the bankruptcy of making California wine as if it were an industrial product. 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.

Little bouquet emerges from this dark ruby-colored wine, but the attractive purity of black-cherry fruit intertwined with spicy oak is pleasing. The wine possesses fine balance and delineation, excellent richness, light to moderate tannin, and a fine finish. Although not the most complex or aromatically profound Cabernet, it is a solidly made, fine effort from this vintage. It should continue to drink well for 7-8 years.

LAST TASTED 6/94 I enjoyed this wine during the first five or six years after its release, but its sterile character is beginning to work against it. Damp cardboard-dominated aromatics are problematic, but some nosing around reveals vague cedar and ripe fruit notes. The color is sound with only slight rust at the edge. At age twenty the creamy richness and fruit the wine possessed when young have taken a back seat to the tannin. This austere wine is drying out and increasingly out of balance.