1982 Léoville-Poyferré, St-Julien

An absolute joy to drink, and a wine I’ve been lucky enough to have multiple times recently, the 1982 Château Léoville Poyferré is fully mature and has a classic, graceful, nuanced perfume of sweet red and black currants, woodsmoke, tobacco leaf, baking spices, and hints of cedar. With medium to full-bodied richness on the palate, it’s beautifully balanced and has ripe, polished tannins, a solid spine of acidity, and a great finish. It’s clearly fully mature, and I don’t see much upside here, but I have no doubt it will evolve gracefully over the coming decade. It’s a beautiful Léoville Poyferré. This bottle was opened, decanted, and followed over the course of an evening.

The 1982 vintage at Château Leoville-Poyferré has always been one of the reference point vintages for this property during its last stage of classical wines, prior to Michel Rolland being invited in to consult here in the 1990s. The wine showed beautifully at our recent ’82 St. Julien tasting, offering up impressive soil signature on both the nose and palate and plenty of the vintage’s superb fruit tones. The bouquet wafts from the glass in a fine blend of red and black cherries, cigar ash, a complex and classy base of soil tones, well done toasty new oak and a lovely touch of spice in the upper register. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and focused, with a fine core, impressive transparency, melting tannins and excellent balance on the very long and suave finish. A lovely wine.