The guide to the best wines of the 1989 vintage
Are you looking for a 1989 wine to mark an important date or celebrate a birthday? La Bouteille Dorée offers you a little practical guide to find your way through these old vintages and to find a bottle from 1989 that will really please its recipient.
Bordeaux 1989
1989 is an exceptional vintage for Bordeaux wines, where the harvest was the earliest of the last century. The great red wines are very concentrated and with sufficient acidity to offer a long shelf life. The best appellations are in the north of the Médoc in Saint-Estèphe, Saint-Julien and Pauillac and in Saint-Emilion and Pomerol where the wines of the great châteaux are rich and ample.
1989 was also an exceptional vintage for the sweet white wines of Sauternes because of the humidity that appeared in September and which offered ideal conditions for the development of Botrytis.
Burgundy 1989
In Burgundy, 1989 began with a mild winter and spring, then continued with a hot, dry summer and some saving rains at the end of August. The quality of the harvests was excellent with abundant and perfectly ripe grapes and the harvest was quite early. The great red wines of the 1989 vintage offer a very long ageing potential, particularly in the best appellations such as Nuits-Saint-Georges and Vosne-Romanée in the Côte de Nuits, and Savigny-les-Beaune, Pernand-Vergelesses and Pommard in the Côte de Beaune.
In white, the best wines of Meursault and Puligny are highly sought after in this 1989 vintage.
Rhône 1989
The hot and dry summer climate of 1989 was almost arid in the Rhône Valley. The grapes were therefore of excellent quality with early ripening. The best red wines of the Rhône of 1989 are thus very long-lasting, ample and powerful, in particular those of Côte-Rôtie in the north and Châteauneuf-du-Pape in the south.
Champagne 1989
Champagne also experienced excellent summer conditions in 1989. Excellent vintage in quality with very rich champagnes, less in quantity due to the frosts in April and uneven flowering.
Other successes of 1989
Among the great successes of the 1989 wines, we can note:
- Alsace wines : As elsewhere in France in 1989, the harvest was exceptionally early and the autumn was particularly favourable to the development of Botrytis for the production of Late Harvest and Selections of noble grains. The wines are superb thanks to a remarkable richness in sugar in the grapes and perfectly balanced.
- Loire wines : One of the best vintages of the 20th century in the Loire Valley, 1989 offers magnificent sweet and sweet white wines and great red wines for laying down.
- Roussillon wines : The natural sweet red wines of Roussillon and the old Maury and Rivesaltes offer very beautiful wines with impressive ageing potential.
- In Italy : An exceptional vintage for the great red wines of northern Italy, balanced, structured and powerful.