Wine Words & Video Tape

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Posts Tagged ‘UGCB’

Bordeaux 2010 Primeurs: St Julien

Written by JW. Posted in Bordeaux

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.

Bordeaux 2010 Primeurs: Pauillac

Written by JW. Posted in Bordeaux

Overall 2010 is dense and intense in Pauillac. The wines are less easy to enjoy than ’09, without that easy flamboyance but they do have phenomenal strength and power, with lots tannin and grip too. It will be very interesting to see how they settle. So the best wines are different in style rather than in quality over ’09. Generally I was seduced more by the style of ’09 in Pauillac to ’10. That said amongst the first growths Mouton has produced an even better wine in ’10 than in ’09, Lafite is perfect but very concentrated and dense and feels less elegant and seductive over ’09. Latour is very dense, concentrated and quite amazing – and almost equalled by a quite extraordinary Les Forts de Latour. Carruades de Lafite is no slouch this year and neither is Le Petit Mouton de Mouton Rothschild.

Bordeaux 2009: The top wines (so far…)

Written by JW. Posted in Bordeaux

Here’s is a brief summary of the top Bordeaux 2009 wines I tasted in late March and early April.  Big caveats here in the selection. Although I did taste 160 plus 2009s, I didn’t get to all the Chateaux I wanted to in the trip. The most notable omissions in the Médoc were, Cos d’Estournel, Montrose, Latour, Pontet Canet, Ducru, Las Cases and Palmer, in Pessac-Léognan Haut-Brion and La Mission, in St Emilion Cheval Blanc and Ausone and the JP Moueix properties in Pomerol, obviously Pétrus, Lafleur-Pétrus and Trotanoy. I tasted most of the Sauternes with the exception of d’Yqyem and Climens. These taken together are clearly an important bunch! I hope to visit these properties in the coming months so news on them will follow when I do. Anyway, here are the scores of my best so far. Hope it’s useful.

Bordeaux 2009 Primeurs: Wonderful Sauternes and Barsac

Written by JW. Posted in Bordeaux

2009 is a wonderful vintage for Sauternes and Barsac. It is not that common that the conditions for a great red wine year provide the same conditions for a great sweet wine year but this does look to be the case in this vintage. Although it is early days the wines in general have a wonderful delicacy and balance and the warm year produced ripe fruit, high in flavour and with high potential alcohol.

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