The vintage

1984

The year Bordeaux lost its Merlot

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The 1984 vintage, rated

The year Bordeaux lost its Merlot

In 2026 a bottle from 1984 marks a 42nd birthday or anniversary

The vintage

Poor · 1/5

The weakest year of the decade in Bordeaux, and there is no polite way round it. Cold, wet weather at flowering destroyed much of the Merlot crop, so Saint-Émilion and Pomerol barely made wine at all, and the Médoc produced lean, hard Cabernet that never filled out. Piedmont and Burgundy were also poor, the Douro declared nothing, and Champagne stayed silent.

What we would buy, and why

Be honest with yourself: there is no great 1984 wine, and any bottle sold as one is trading on the date rather than the contents. The right answer is a spirit. Armagnac is distilled every single year without exception, and a 1984 cask is now forty-two years old and very good indeed, usually for €150 to €300. If it has to be wine, a top Médoc from an estate that selected ruthlessly will be pleasant rather than memorable and should cost under €200.

1984 in the world

Apple launched the Macintosh in January with a single television advertisement, Ghostbusters ran all summer, and in a Leicester laboratory in September Alec Jeffreys worked out genetic fingerprinting more or less by accident.

Best bets for 1984

  • A 1984 vintage Armagnac from Baron de Sigognac, Delord or Castarède, the best answer to this year by some distance
  • A Madeira from D'Oliveiras or Barbeito, which shrugs off age entirely and cannot be spoiled by a bad summer
  • Château Léoville-Las Cases or Latour 1984, the two estates that declassified hardest
  • A 1984 vintage Cognac if the recipient prefers a lighter, softer spirit

How we grade a bottle

Fill level, label, capsule and cork, then provenance. Every bottle is checked by hand by people who have handled thousands of old bottles, and we write down the flaws as well as the good news. What the fill levels mean · How to choose a birth-year wine

Real people, not a chatbot

Ask a person about this year

The people who answer are the same people who check and pack the bottles. Ask for photographs, a condition report or advice on a year and you get a straight answer from the ANNO team, Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 18:00 CET.