Region | |
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Subregion | France > Bordeaux > Right Bank > St Emilion |
Colour | Red |
Type | Still |
View all vintages of this wine | View all wines by Château Figeac
This is a strong effort for Figeac, but the wine is fully mature and is beginning to fade slightly. It offers a terrific bouquet of roasted herbs, cedarwood, licorice, sweet cherries, and background foresty/underbrush notes, a fleshy attack, medium body, sweet fruit, and plenty of glycerin, but the tannins provide a pinched finish that evaporates quickly leaving only astringency. This wine tires within 45 minutes of opening, so it needs to be drunk over the next 4-5 years, if not sooner. And, do not over-aerate!
One of Bordeaux's most schizophrenic properties, as disappointing as Figeac's 1989 has turned out, the 1990 is fabulous. This property has not made a wine as rich as the 1990 since 1982. In contrast to the 1989, the 1990 is a great Figeac, potentially a richer, more complete and complex wine than the 1982. The 1990 exhibits a saturated dark purple color (somewhat atypical for Figeac), and a gorgeous nose of olives, fruitcake, jammy black fruits, minerals, and licorice. Medium to full-bodied, with gobs of glycerin-imbued, sweet, jammy fruit, this wine is nicely buttressed by moderate tannin and adequate acidity. Fleshy and rich, as well as elegant and complex, it is approachable because of the wine's sweet fruit, but it promises even more pleasure with 2-4 more years of bottle age; it will last for 20 years. I predict the 1990 Figeac will have one of the most exotic and compelling aromatic profiles of the 1990s. It is a terrific wine!
Tasted at the Château Figeac vertical at the property. The 1990 Figeac was drinking gloriously and this is perhaps the best bottle that I have tasted. It is noticeably deep in color, in fact, deeper and more lucid than many vintages from the 1980s. It reminds me of the Lafleur 1990 in some ways, with its very expressive Cabernet Franc that manifests black truffle and cigar ash scents. There is such clarity here. The palate is medium-bodied and full of degraded black, earthy fruit. There is weight and presence here, gently gripping the mouth with a long tobacco-tinged finish that is still very satisfying. There is something still "old school" about this Figeac, but it certainly would be my pick from this era. Drink: 2015 - 2035