WEINWISSER: "Mittleres Purpur, dunkel in der Mitte. Kompaktes, intensives und sehr tiefgründiges Bouquet, Pflaumentöne, dunkle Edelhölzer, noch sehr verschlossen wirkend, mit einem riesigen Nasenpotenzial. Reifer, pflaumiger Gaumen, tolle Aromatik, Zedernholz, Kandis und eine gewaltige Süsse im leicht rauchigen Finale, viel Druck."
WINESPECTATOR: "Delivers so much blackberry, leather and dried fruits on the nose. Full-bodied, with ultrapolished tannins and a silky mouthfeel. The palate turns to leaves, cedar and dried berries on the finish, which goes on and on. This is still reserved for the vintage, suggesting a long life ahead. Just coming around now, but will improve many years ahead. I have always loved this Lynch.--'89/'99 Bordeaux blind retrospective (2009). Drink now. 35,000 cases made."
JANCIS ROBINSON: "Lovely deep garnet and vibrant with very little sign of development. Fabulous sweet fruit still, plus a touch of coffee and cigar box. Complex and elegant but rich too. Then vibrant and spreading on the palate. Velvety but still finely structured. A wonderful whole and drinking perfectly even though it still has plenty to give. Later: still plenty of sweet fruit although it has become slightly more medicinal. And the fruit seems less full in the mouth than earlier."
JAMES SUCKLING: "I have always been a big fan of this rich wine, with its currant and tropical fruit character on the nose and palate, and just a hint of toasted oak. It’s full-bodied, with wild fruit and tobacco character, and a roasted coffee bean aftertaste. This is a fabulous wine. Served from imperial bottle."
ANTONIO GALLONI: "The 1989 Lynch-Bages is one of Jean-Michel Cazes’s triumphs. At three decades, it shows absolutely no signs of slowing down. Blackberry and cedar soar from the glass just as they did from the bottle last year, and touches of graphite develop, all beautifully defined and focused. As I’ve proclaimed before, there is such energy and vigor here! The palate is medium-bodied with a fresh, minty opening. The cedar element is a little stronger than the previous bottles that I have tasted, yet there is still that symmetry and focus. This particular bottle shows a touch more development on the finish compared to others encountered over the years, with great structure and grip, notes of tobacco and just a hint of morels surfacing on the aftertaste. A remarkable Lynch-Bages that is at its peak. As an aside, Jean-Michel Cazes mentioned that there are few bottles of the 1989 remaining in their reserves. A break-in during the 1990s saw robbers of good taste steal much of their stock. Tasted from an ex-cellar bottle at the château."
THE WINE CELLAR INSIDER: "The first thing you notice is the unmistakable aroma of an unsmoked Cuban cigar, with its hint of bitter chocolate, coupled with cedar, smoke, tobacco, mint, spice, herbs and roasted blackberries. Full-bodied, concentrated, intense and firm, there is a sweetness to the fruit, a hint of green pepper and a gorgeous display of blackberries and cassis in the long finish. This is not about finesse. Instead, it is all about the fabulous, big juicy gulp of mouth-filling cassis that really hits the spot! The wine is showing great today. If you have a bottle, do not hesitate to check it out."
FALSTAFF: "Dunkles Rubingranat, zarter Ockerrand, tiefe Farbe. Reife, fast opulent wirkende dunkle Beerenfrucht, Brombeeren, Cassis und ein Hauch von Eukalyptus, kandierte Orangenzesten, feine Kräuterwürze. Am Gaumen kraftvoll, sehr stoffige Textur, perfekt ausgereifte Frucht, feste, bestens integrierte Tannine, mineralisch, schwarzbeerige Nuancen im Abgang, sehr gut anhaltend, verfügt über gutes weiteres Reifepotenzial."
THE WINEADVOCATE: "I have tasted the Château Lynch Bages 1989 several times since my last penned note in 2010. It is such a consistent wine, a Pauillac that never lets you down. Here it continues to sport a relatively backward blackberry and cedar scented nose, the graphite (pencil box) element a little more accentuated. The aromatic purr like a Bentley, unraveling with each swirl of the glass. The palate is very well defined with a rigid structure, well-judged acidity and hints of chestnut and cooked meat offering secondary notes on the dense finish that suggest a long drinking plateau. What a stupendous wine from Jean-Michel Cazes!"
