The 1989 Cheval Blanc is a vintage that I have not encountered since 2010. One bottle opened was rustic and fatigued, and Pierre-Olivier Clouet opened a second that was much better. It has a gorgeous bouquet of ample red fruit, morels, black truffle, cigar box and hints of brown sugar, all very well defined and charming. The palate is medium-bodied with grainy tannin and approaching full maturity; brown spices, bay leaf and clove infuse the red berry fruit. At 30 years of age, I suspect this 1989 will not improve further, but its robustness suggests that any decline will be graceful. Tasted from an ex-cellar bottle at the château. (NM)

The 1989 Cheval Blanc is a beautiful example of the vintage, offering a deep, complex and utterly classic nose of dark berries, black cherries, menthol, cigar ash, gravelly soil tones, woodsmoke and a base of toasty new wood. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and very pure on the attack, with a rock solid core of sappy fruit, outstanding soil inflection, superb complexity and a very, very long, youthful and ripely tannic finish. While this wine is not particularly far away from fully blossoming and will be quite drinkable with another four or five years of cellaring, I would be very strongly inclined to not touch a bottle for at least another decade, as I would love to see this wine in the same magical spot as the 1983 Cheval is today. (JG) 94+

Garnet-tinged red. Leafy aromas of green and red bell pepper, bay leaf and sweeter milk chocolate and superripe plum. Then sweeter and smoother in the mouth than the nose suggests, showing very ripe red cherry, blackberry, milk chocolate and mineral flavors. This boasts a lovely creamy texture and a nice spicy finish, with chewy tannins. A lovely wine, with a sexy personality that grew on me as it opened in the glass, but it's much inferior to the stellar 1990. Make sure you decant this at least a couple hours ahead. A precocious year, 1989 registered only 450 millimeters of rainfall (or half the normal amount) during the growth cycle, with the flowering taking place in the last week of May and veraison during the first week of August. Harvest was from September 7 to 27, the earliest start ever at Cheval Blanc. (ID)