Wine Words & Video Tape

Wine, Words and Videotape

Fine Wine Review site

Posts Tagged ‘Chateau La Mission Haut-Brion Blanc’

Bordeaux 2014 Primeurs – Tuesday

Written by JW. Posted in Bordeaux

Chateau PalmerTuesday’s 2014 primeurs tastings started at Château Palmer [pictured – but not in that weather – grey and drizzly] and continued with the UGC Margaux event at Château Dauzac. The wines generally showed a lot of very vivacious and attractive fruit with vibrant acidity and there was more homogeneity than usual. Palmer and Alter Ego looked good with plenty of texture and fruit. Château Margaux tasted later felt classical and proportional. Pavillon Blanc looks excellent [many of the 2014 whites are very good indeed]. Overall in Margaux there is much to compare with 2008 in terms of freshness and 2012 in terms of fruit, though more so, and at the top level 2014 appears to be better than both vintages. Tastings at the UGC event at Château Lamarque – where a large St Bernard was woofing at visitors from the ramparts of the château – were rewarding. There is a lot of fresh, juicy fruit and ripe tannin on display amongst the Haut-Médocs, and these should [hopefully] offer good value.

Bordeaux Primeurs 2013: Pessac-Léognan Whites

Written by JW. Posted in Bordeaux

Smith Haut Laffite - CopyThere’s a very fresh, saline quality to the whites of Pessac-Léognan in 2013 and overall the vintage looks successful. Comparisons are being made with 2007 and 2010, but with greater acidity than the latter. Certainly the wines are marked by freshness, emphasized partly as they are a bit less weighty with fractionally lower alcohols than usual. None of this is a bad thing. It makes makes for complex, nuanced and appetizing dry white wines.

Bordeaux Primeurs 2013: Château Haut-Brion and Château La Mission Haut-Brion

Written by JW. Posted in Bordeaux

IMG_5641Château Haut-Brion and Château La Mission Haut-Brion have produced reasonably composed wines in 2013. Haut-Brion feels the more backward, almost a fraction austere on the palate. Stylistically they are somewhere between 2007 and 2008 in style and quality but with more marked acidity than either of those vintages. 2012 [especially] and 2011 were more impressive here at both properties. Still the whites are certainly very good in 2013. If they don’t have the weight and fat of the warm years, there is real race and Burgundian bite. They will age superbly. Haut-Brion Blanc is already delicious.

Bordeaux Primeurs 2012: Pessac-Léognan

Written by JW. Posted in Bordeaux

IMG_4428

Several wonderful red wines have been made in Pessac-Léognan this year but the real successes are amongst the whites, not just up at the highest echelons but further down there are many refreshing, fruity white wines to be had too. The very best are rich, weighty, almost fat, with a fraction less zip than 2011, but very attractive nevertheless. The reds? I found them a little bit of a mixed bunch. There is no doubt that the wet weather caused problems for the Cabernets as it did elsewhere. Some of the Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon, while certainly ‘fresh’, were often angular in tannin, and many are a bit ‘grippy’ and ‘chewy’, even despite the fat, ripe Merlot on offer. My overall feeling with these is that you need to tread carefully. That said, it’s clear that great effort was put in by proprietors to try and make the very best reds they could in a challenging year, one that got increasingly so as the harvest progressed.

Follow Us