Bordeaux En Primeurs
What a week that was! We began the Bordeaux wine tour on Monday morning in Saint-Emilion, visiting châteaux that included Château Gaffelliere and finished off with a tasting at La Mission Haut Brion and the exceptional Château Haut Brion 2010 on the Thursday. In between, we tasted several hundred samples from the 2010 vintage plus the odd quirky one like the 1945 La Conseillante, Pomerol, which, I have to say, was quite amazing. The tannins had almost gone but the wine had a superb nose of red berries and chocolate coupled with a lovely texture – it was hard to believe that this wine was nearly 70 years old.
In general, the 2010 vintage, like 2009, had quite high levels of alcohol due to the sugar levels in the grapes, in fact, in most cases, even higher levels than the previous year. The real difference, however, in the vintages would have to be that 2010 had much more acidity and tannin content and was therefore not so soft, or should I say, smooth, as the 2009. These would arguably be good wines for keeping.
One of the most memorable events of the Bordeaux wine tour was the visit to Château Margaux where the tasting was hosted by Paul Pontallier and I have to say that his Château Margaux was as good as, if not better than the 2009 – in his own words, “sheer magic!”. This was followed by a visit to Château Ausone and Château Cheval Blanc. The Cheval Blanc was, to my mind, a more classic Bordeaux than the 2009. Before we left Cheval Blanc we were asked if we’d like to taste Château d’Yquem 2010. How could we refuse such an offer? The wine had lively fruit aromas, superb freshness with lovely integrated flavours of honey – fine and delicate.
Now all that remains is a trip to the dentist to have the tannin stains removed from my teeth!
Tony Stebbings