Bordeaux day two - The rollercoaster continues

After the peaks of Monday there was a pretty scary descent into the right bank UGCs. Let’s focus on the positives. Gazin and Conseillante are very good and Clinet continues to improve its style. The St Emilion tasting was altogether forgettable, except for some notable absences. The Nicolas Thienpont wines were nowhere to be seen (yields are so low at these estates, they decided to pull out of the Union tasting), so it was back in the bus for an unscheduled tasting at Pavie Macquin. Larcis Ducasse was surprisingly subdued, but Pavie Macquin and Beausejour Duffau are both quite striking. We bade farewell to the right bank and programmed the sat nav for Pessac Leognan.

Prince Robert of Luxembourg and Jean-Philippe Delmas greeted us at La Mission Haut Brion. A draconian selection has meant that for the first time they have bigger yields for the whites than the reds. The reds are both rather grand and the whites are drop dead gorgeous. Delving deeper into the commune we found a delicious Domaine de Chavalier a glossy Smith Haut Lafitte and some lovely dry whites, most notably: Malartic Lagraviere and Picque Cailliou. However, the UGC tasting was not plain sailing - many of the reds were charmless or worse…

On to Margaux. The new cellars, designed by Norman Foster are under construction so we tasted with Paul Pontallier in what is apparently France’s largest privately owned orangery. It certainly is a mighty fine building and a suitable place to taste a very refined and graceful flight of wines. At neighbours, Chateau Palmer, by contrast, we found something more voluptuous, sexy and juicy. There was also time for a quick visit to Clos des Quatre Vents. Luc has sold the estate to a Chinese company, but stays on to lend his considerable knowledge. The CD4V is charming and elegant, but lacks the depth of recent vintages. We also tasted a quite unique Chinese icewein from near the North Korean border made by the new owners of Clos des Quartre Vents! In short, it has been a day of peaks and troughs…

Top of the Right Bank and Graves

Who should be topping our chart of Pessac Leognan, Pomerol and St Emilion; well it's Monsieur Durantou of course. Fresh off the back of La Chenade's victory in the hotly contested 'Best Value' category, Denis is back on top of the charts with his legendary Eglise Clinet. On his heals is Francois Mitjavile with his excellent Tertre Roteboeuf, followed by Alexandre Thienpont's hugely impressive Vieux Chateau Certan.

Special mention should go to Florence and Daniel Cathiard's Smith Haut Lafitte and Olivier Bernard's Domaine de Chevalier. These two really caught our eye and should offer terrific value for money.

1 L’Eglise Clinet

2 Tertre Roteboeuf *

3 Vieux Chateau Certan ****

4 La Mission Haut Brion **

5 Smith Haut Lafitte

6 Pensees de Lafleur

7 Evangile

8 Clos Fourtet

9 Domaine de Chevalier *

10 Conseillante

Bordeaux 2012 - Day 2

Paul Pontallier, courtesy of Peter Richards MW

Day two started with a drive into the hills of Castillon for a tasting with Paul and Cedric Valade. As we have come to expect, the wines are sumptuous, serious and punch well above their price points. An acquisition of 2.5 hectares takes the total area of Chateau Valade to almost 6 ha. The wines are perfumed, balanced and will give so much pleasure in a couple of years. Bravo chaps!

We wound our way back to St Emilion for our first UGC. Time limits prevented a thorough tasting, so we were slightly selective. There were quite a few standouts, but none more so than Clos Fourtet: a really spectacular wine and an estate well and truly on top of their game. Other noteworthy properties included the Thienpont and Derenoncort collaborations: Larcis Ducasse and Pavie Macquin. Next stop, a whirlwind stop at Conseillante to taste at the Pomerol UGC. Again, the clock was ticking. Gazin stole the show; a really classy bitter-sweet, Sanguinello orange style with loads of depth, complexity and sumptuous tannins. Clinet will probably hit all the right notes with Mr P, but found few admirers in the J&B team.

Back in the wagon and over two rivers to Haut Brion, or is that La Mission Haut Brion. A 50:50 chance, but the Bordeaux Buyer was wrong again, the story of the week... La Mission incorporates one of the highest percentages of Merlot ever, but is uncharacteristically closed. Usually the exuberant sibling at this stage, it’s cloaked, but possesses enormous potential. Haut Brion by contrast is atypically open, even flamboyant. Two great wines that will be fascinating to watch develop.

Olivier Bernard was our most generous host for lunch. A flight of `82, `92 and `02 Domaine de Chevalier Rouge and Blanc accompanied a spectacular lunch. His 2012s are equally magnificent. The Blanc is definitely one of the best examples we have tasted from DDC and the Rouge is sumptuous, sexy and will give drinkers masses of pleasure in a few year’s time.

Post lunch we tackled the Pessac UGC at the charming and anchient Chateau Olivier. Quality and consistency seem to be the bywords here – a really exceptional selection of wines topped by the splendid Smith Haut Lafitte Rouge. Whites fared well too with too many highlights to mention; this is a successful vintage in the early ripening Pessac Leognan commune.

Back around the Rocade and up to Margaux to finish day two. Paul Pontalier was at his ebullient best, and his wines certainly didn’t disappoint. The reds are wonderfully perfumed, taut, classical examples, whilst the Pavillon Blanc is the best to date in our opinion. Neighbour Chateau Palmer gets the thumbs up too. Alter Ego and the Grand Vin are sumptuous, even decadent wines that we like a lot!

Our final appointment of the day was with our old friend Luc Thienpont. The highlight of the tasting was the stunning Clos des Quatre Vents, although the Villa des Quatre Soeurs and the Z are both excellent and will be perfect for the dinner table in a couple of years.

So, we’ve tasted from four communes in one day and we’ve discovered many exciting wines, and almost as many that haven’t hit the mark. Some estates have pushed too hard and some just don’t have the terroir to produce good wine in 2012. Some by contrast have had their hands forced by the weather and have resisted the temptation to harvest late and therefore their wines have more restraint and precision. It is not a homogenous vintage; in fact it’s a year that sorts the best terroirs and the best vignerons from the rest. The peeks can be quite high, but research is essential and there are more than a few troughs...

Southwold under snow

Despite the freezing conditions, many of the great and good from the wine trade made the annual pilgrimage to Suffolk to re-taste the much vaunted 2009s.

This was the vintage of the century, a vintage that boasts 17 hundred point wines, so how do they stack up three and a bit years on? Well the first observation is the tannins. From barrel, these were almost undetectable. Most of our notes referred to silky, velvety tannins, mainly masked by opulent fruit. Today, the wines are quite obviously tannic. They have lost some of that hedonistic quality and have gained in structure. This all bodes well for long term storage, but may put impatient souls off...

Another surprise was just how big a gulf there is between the top names and the low-mid-range Clarets. vignerons and negociants declared 2009 to be a 'great', 'homogenous' vintage with quality produced from top to bottom. They are right, many of the smaller estates have produced their best wines in 2009, but from the evidence of this tasting, you cannot expect to obtain First Growth quality on a cru bourgeois budget. At the affordable level the likes of Gloria, Clos des Quatre Vents, Poujeaux, Roc de Cambes, Lafon Rochet, Langoa Barton and Haut Batailley all had very strong showings and offer very good QPR (quality price ratio).

Where the vintage becomes really interesting is at the very top echelons. These flights from both banks of the Gironde were quite exceptional. Duhart Milon, Latour, Lafite, Mouton Rothschild, Montrose, Ducru Beaucaillou, Las Cases, Cheval Blanc, Canon, Ausone, Eglise Clinet, Clinet, Le Pin, Petrus and Palmer all deserve special mention. I gave two 20/20 scores to Latour and Montrose and on another day I may have awarded Lafite, Mouton and Eglise Clinet the same accolade. Other estates worthy of a special mention include Domaine de Chevalier Rouge (£540/cs) and Grand Puy Lacoste (£575/cs). Both offer outstanding quality and punch well above their weight.

The final session was devoted to the whites. I have to admit, the 2009 Sauternes and Barsacs rather passed me by when we tasted from barrel. All the hype surrounding the reds swallowed me up and I feel I rather missed a trick. 2009 produced splendid botrytis and the wines display everything needed for successful cellaring: richness, density, complexity, freshness and balance. They are delightful wines, and whilst they will always play second fiddle to the reds, they should certainly not be forgotten. My highlights included Doisy Vedrines, Lafaurie Peyraguey, Suduiraut and Rieussec.

So in conclusion, the reds are shutting down. Apart from petit chateaux, I would suggest holding the 2009s for a minimum of five years to experience them at anything like their best. If there were any concerns that 2009s were not built for long-term storage, this tasting should dispel that theory; these are massive, structured, profound wines that will cellar effortlessly and give their owners years of pleasure.

*All the views in this blog are mine and they are not necessarily shared by the rest of the tasters.