1986 Iván Tamás Cabernet Sauvignon, California

Ten bottles available. A birth-year bottle, and we will be straight about that.

Who Iván Tamás was

Iván Tamás Füzy was a Hungarian émigré who came to California, worked his way through wineries, and in 1984 co-founded Ivan Tamas Cellars in the Livermore Valley with Steve Mirassou, of the old Livermore wine family. It was a value-priced operation working largely with purchased grapes rather than an estate. Füzy left the partnership in 1997, Wente bought the brand in 2001 and renamed it Tamás Estates, and the winery has since closed.

What this bottle is, and what it is not

It is forty years old. There is no published critic score for it, no professional tasting note, and no published blend or ageing detail, which is what you would expect from an inexpensive brand from the mid-eighties. It was not built to last four decades and we are not going to tell you it was.

What it is: a genuinely scarce bottle carrying a 1986 date and a good story about a Hungarian who arrived with nothing and put his own name on a California Cabernet within a few years. If you are looking for a fortieth-birthday or anniversary bottle and you want something nobody else at the table will have heard of, that is the case for it. If you are buying for the drinking, buy something else on this page.

Where this bottle came from

Every rare bottle we list came out of somebody's cellar, bought from a collector we know rather than through a broker. We inspect each one in person before taking it, and it sits in temperature-controlled storage from that day on.

The details

• Producer: Ivan Tamas Cellars, Livermore Valley, California
• Vintage: 1986
• Grape: Cabernet Sauvignon, from Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino fruit
• Format: 750ml
• Drinking window: open it on arrival, or keep it sealed as a keepsake

Serving

Stand upright for two days. Open it at the table and pour immediately, off the sediment, without decanting. A wine of this age and origin can fade within twenty minutes of air. Drink it first, then talk about it.

Ten bottles, packed for transit and shipped from Florida. Browse more rare and limited vintages.