Has somebody tasted Ch‚teau Figeac 1990 recently

I'm sorry to hear of such a disappointment - I have tasted it relatively recently - last September at the Chateau - and found it as good as you would expect from such a Chateau in such a year. 1990 was an excellent year and I woudl be very surpries if this was ageneral problem with the rest of your case. (I very recently drank some '87 and even that is good - by the standards of the year, very good.)

This sounds as though it was a dead bottle - not corked but just dead and lifeless: one of those inexplicable mysteries of wine. I remember a bottle of Ch. Soutard 1985 which I opened when we had a Saint-Emilion evening with the then Chancellor of the Jurade in the North (not knowing he was bringing some Ausone and Cheval Blanc). The first bottle I opened was just like you describe the Figeac being but, oddly enough, seemed to have come back to life by the end of the evening - though it was not of the same order as the second bottle which I opened and which was wholly different from the first on opening. I've had similar experiences with "dead" bottles from a variety of places but they do not often come back to life nor, I'm pleased to say, does it by any means mean imply that others in the case will be similarly affected. I'm sure we'd be interested to hear how you get on with the next bottle. Good luck.

Tim Hartley