With the first Bordeaux 2010 releases starting to trickle out [at prices that seem on par to 2009] I’ve culled my tasting notes down by score for the vintage for the top thirty reds, the a dozen likely best value reds and then a dozen best dry and sweet whites as I saw it. It’s a snapshot obviously. Hope it’s helpful. The full notes for each chateau review can be found either by backtracking down the previous posts, through the search box or down under the Bordeaux Vintage 2010 profile.

St Julien didn’t quite knock me out in 2010 as it did in 2009 but then that was an amazing, atypical year. And that doesn’t mean that this isn’t a great vintage here or that the quality is uneven. The appellation remains the benchmark for homogeneity. Great wines have been produced at Chateau  Léoville-Las-Cases and Chateau Léoville Poyferré, both terrific are. Chateau Gruaud Larose is also looking wonderful in 2010, as good, but different from 2009 in fact. Chateau St Pierre also looks strong very strong. Still there is a lot of grip here, even the best wines, so fresh was the acidity and considerable the tannin in this fascinating vintage.

Domaines Delon have produced a really homogenous set of wines in St Julien in 2010. In a dry, concentrated year there are no surprises here with a fantastic Chateau Léoville Las Cases and an excellent Clos du Marquis.

If you need an insight into the level of determination and effort required to return an estate to the top league then you need to look no further than the contemporary renaissance at Chateau Léoville-Poyferré. Twenty-five years is the time frame Anne Cuvelier points to when she looks back at the efforts that her cousin Didier Cuvelier has put in here since he began managing the property in 1979. Since then there has been extensive work in the vineyards. Old rootstocks were torn out and replaced and the property, then just 48 hectares, brought up to the 80 hectares now under production. In the cellar there has been much investment too and Michel Rolland is now the estate’s consultant, though Poyferré also has its own in-house talent in the form of winemaker Isabelle Davin.