Bottle variation at the top

I have mixed feelings about this Mouton 1994. This is basically generated by the immense bottle variation in a group of bottles I take to be a couple of cases of this wine that I tasted over the course of some 6 to 8 years. My first encounter with the wine was at a blind tasting that the KCC Wine Society hosted in early 2001. Neither my wife nor I recognised its excellence and it did not come in the top half of the dozen bottles we tasted. The experience was repeated with the rest of the group and it did not come in at the top three. The top was Ch Haut-Marbuzet, the surprise winner in a whole host of cru classes! We were so "impressed" by the Mouton 94 that we bought a couple more cases of Ch La Conseillante 1996, which we liked and was on offer at the time.

Over the next few years, we've had the same wine around half a dozen times. Sometimes it would be quite nice, but it never reached the dizzy heights of perfection. At other times, it was rather uninspiring, better than ordinary but not confidently so. As these bottles all came from the same reliable source, I can only conclude that whatever causes bottle variation in top wines, there was a massive overdose of it within these two dozen or so Mouton 1994s.