Ch.Pape Clement 1986 750ml

Wine Advocate #228, Dec 31, 2016, by Neal Martin
The 1986 Pape-Clement has a really quite gorgeous bouquet with bundles of black plum and cranberry aromas, plush and perfumed, wilted violets and rose petals seeming to spring up everywhere. The palate is medium-bodied with a slightly medicinal opening. This is supple in texture, perhaps not quite delivering the complexity of the aromatics, with tar and hickory tincturing the black fruit, good depth if not nuance on the generous, medicinal finish. Sure, it's old school Pessac-Leognan, but you would happily finish off a bottle and it has the guts and substance to give another 10-20 years of pleasure.

Château Pape Clément is a Cru Classé Graves property that has one of the oldest documented histories of any Bordeaux vineyard, having been planted in 1300 by Bernard de Groth, the future Pope Clément V. In 1939 the estate was bought by the Montagne family and is now owned and run by Léo Montagne.
Pape Clément is located in the Bordeaux suburb of Pessac and consists of a chai and 32 hectares of vineyards, planted with Cabernet Sauvignon (60%), Merlot (40%) and small amounts of Sauvignon Blanc, Sémillon and Muscadelle.
The quality of the wines at Pape Clément slipped in the 1960s and 70s, largely because of under-investment. Bernard Magrez was appointed as general manager in 1985 and he turned Pape Clément's fortunes around. He introduced more rigorous selection in the vineyards, as well as installing stainless steel vats and raising the percentage of new oak casks used in the maturation process.
Pape Clément now produces one of the finest clarets in Pessac-Léognan.

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