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Château Siran 1989

During the 1990s, as I began to explore wine and specifically Bordeaux, it was of course the vintages of the 1980s that dominated my tasting and drinking. I don’t recall too many encounters with the 1982 vintage (is there such a thing as ‘too many encounters’ when it comes to 1982?), but I certainly got to grips with the wines of 1985, which I always admired for their purity and finesse (my first ever blind-tasting success was spotting a 1985 in a Bordeaux line-up – they were always very distinctive). And the wines of 1988, 1989 and 1990 (an honorary member of the 1980s, for the moment, anyway) were also popular choices, especially the first two of the trio, the prices of which remained more wallet-friendly than the third.

So it was good to come back to an old friend from the 1989 vintage this Easter weekend.

The 1989 season started off well; favourable winter conditions resulted in an early budbreak in late March, potentially setting the scene for frost damage but thankfully this did not come to pass and the early start was thus to everyone’s advantage. While April was rather damp the weather in May was fine and the vines were still well ahead of schedule, the flowering coming three weeks before the norm. June was very warm, setting the scene for the months to follow, which were hot and dry, producing the region’s warmest summer since 1949. The result was the earliest harvest since 1983, with a handful of estates picking young-vine fruit in late August, although most started in the first week of September.

Château Siran 1989

The harvest was not as straightforward as you might imagine though. The rapid ripening induced by the warm and dry conditions meant that some of the earlier picked fruit lacked a little physiological maturity; while the sugar concentrations were good, and the potential alcohol levels satisfactory, the tannins lagged behind, and were a little rough around the edges. Those who picked later achieved greater harmony, with softer tannins, but acidities were lower and the alcohols were higher (although still nothing like the levels seen in Bordeaux today, in warm vintages such as 2009, 2015 and 2018).

All the same pretty much everybody was content with what they had, the second fine vintage in a row after 1988. A few influential voices, however, were not sure what to make of the wines; writing in Vintage Wine (Websters International, 2002) Michael Broadbent (1927 – 2020) wrote; “I personally thought we were in for another ’85 but with extra dimensions; perhaps even an early developer. In fact what seems to have happened is a sort of reversal of roles, the tannin becoming more noticeable, turning the ’89 into a much longer-haul vintage than I had anticipated. Nevertheless, many superlative wines.” Superlative indeed – and I love the reference to the 1985 vintage in Michael’s writing; certainly there were more similarities between the style and poise found in 1989 and 1985 than I recall finding in 1988 or 1990.

All of which brings me to one of my Easter weekend wines, the 1989 grand vin from Château Siran. From magnum, no less. As usual (since the 1980 vintage, anyway) the label features a work of art relevant to the year, and quite appropriately the artist chosen for 1989 was A. R. Penck (1939 – 2017), a German national born in Dresden (in what would become East Germany); his work references the fall of the Berlin Wall, which came down in 1989. After removing the cork without difficulty this was decanted for an hour or two, allowing it to display its undeniably mature and slightly dusty garnet hue. The aromatics are beautifully pure for its age, scented with balsa wood, orange peel, cranberry and mature tobacco. This precedes a palate which feels cool and delicately silky, the filigree texture laced with veins of tobacco and crushed chalk, resting over a fine lacework of tannins which support the midpalate with a fortitude reminiscent of crumbling chalk. Dry, structured and lightly peppered in the finish, lingering well, this is a fine example of the 1989 vintage. Drink or hold (from magnum, anyway) but there really is little point in waiting now. The alcohol on the label is 12%. 92/100 (2/4/24)

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