Cyrille Thienpont showed the range of wines that the Thienponts manage on the Right Bank at a comprehensive tasting at Château Pavie Macquin earlier this month. The jewels here are in St Emilion and include Château Berliquet, Château Larcis Ducasse, Château Pavie Macquin itself and Château Beauséjour [hDL]. These wines look very good indeed in 2014. Larcis Ducasse has beautiful ripeness and seduction, Pavie-Macquin power and strength and Beauséjour fantastic purity. The Nicolas Thienpont properties in the Côtes de Francs [Château Puyregaud and Château La Prade] and the Côtes de Castillon [Château Alcée] are also very much worth considering in 2014. On the question of whether the vintage is a year for the Cabernets [Franc especially so here on the Right Bank] Cyrille Thienpont sees that is it just as much a question of soils as varieties. Cabernet Franc from the best terroirs is very good indeed and benefitted the most from the September and October sun, but in the right spots the Merlot has succeeded well too.

Bordeaux’s primeurs week ended for me, as it began, in St Emilion. While perhaps 2014 will be seen as a vintage for the Cabernets and therefore the Left Bank, there is in fact a lot to like about the texture and freshness of the best wines from Pomerol and St Emilion. Cyrille Thienpont who works with his father at many Right Bank properties [including Berliquet, Larcis-Ducasse and Pavie-Macquin], said it was as much the terroir that mattered [well drained, clay-limestone] as the variety [Merlot/Cabernet] in St Emilion. These thoughts were echoed in Pomerol by his cousin Alexandre Thienpont at Vieux Château Certan [the 2014 VCC is an intellectual beauty by the way]. What pleased him was the marriage of the Merlot and the Cabernet on his property. The vintage, he believes, allowed the elements to combine well, and that the strength of the wine [and perhaps the vintage?] was in the combination rather than in any of the particular elements here on the Right Bank.

I’ve been following Château Berliquet, Château Larcis Ducasse and Château Pavie-Macquin closely for the past half dozen vintages, properties all managed by Nicolas Thienpont. It was interesting to look at the wines in more detail back in April at a tasting held at Pavie-Macquin with Cyrille Thienpont and David Suire. Along with the 2013s shown, we had another look at 2011 in bottle and, fascinatingly, a decade on, the 2004s. There was also the opportunity to taste Chateau Beauséjour [héritiers Duffau-Lagarrosse] 2013, 2011 and 2004, a property which the Thienponts have been managing since 2009.

Nicolas Thienpont describes the 2013 vintage as a ‘winemaker’s nightmare.’ The honesty is refreshing. Still despite the bad dreams and insomnia the properties he manages in St Emilion with his son Cyrille and winemaker David Suire have performed pretty well in 2013. There is surprising richness to Château Larcis Ducasse, genuine plushness to Château Pavie Macquin and sinewy purity to Château Beauséjour[Duffau-Lagarrosse]. Château Berliquet is sweet, ripe and quite fleshy in the middle. Just how did they manage it?