Lesser lights of 1990 show their class

IT is in the DNA of human beings to keep striving upwards, focusing on the best, usually to the exclusion and neglect of the lesser lights, those below the Firsts and the Grand Crus. It is necessary to consciously and deliberately re-align one's horizons downwards.

I have recounted in previous columns the pleasure and delight provided by least expected wines, e.g. Vieux Chateau Certan 2007, Lynch Bages 2004 and many more. Their en primeur and current prices compared with the Firsts doubled the pleasure and enjoyment these "lesser lights" gave! An invitation, therefore, to dinner at which my host proposed a wine list of six non-Firsts 1990 Bordeaux wines was non-refusable. The wines: Chateaux Cos d'Estournel 2nd Growth St Estephe, Grand Puy Lacoste 5th Pauillac, Gruaud Larose St 2nd St Julien, Rauzan Segla 2nd Margaux, Magdelaine Premier Grand Cru Class (B), and L'Eglise Clinet, Pomerol. The only commune not represented was Graves.

1990 opened the decade with a bang, echoing the bang made by the 1989 vintage which closed the decade of the eighties. It was also the third of the great trilogy 1988-1990, a trilogy which aroused considerable debate: "Which of the three was the best?"