TN: 05 Beaulieu Comtes de Taste [Bordeaux Superieur]

[AKR]

05 Beaulieu Comtes de Tastes [Bordeaux Superiueur] I don't know if the 'Comtes de Tastes' ownership moniker is really needed or part of the name here, but everyone seems to include it when discussing it. I am pretty sure I had it on release, but don't remember it, but picked up a bottle recently from K&L which has a 'private collection' sticker which is kind of baffling for an item entitled to only a Bordeaux AOC name. That being said, this is terrific. It's a Jeffrey M Davies selection, which means it has a rich, usefully detailed label (like Ridge). I'm quoting here but here are some select snippets: 13% abv, hand harvesting, clay / limestone soils, Stephane Derononcourt consulting, cover cropping, green harvesting, leaf pulling, low yields - 1 bottle per vine, 20 year old vines, 60/40 merlot/CS, vine density double New World levels, cold soak maceration, aged on lees, all new barrels (!), malo in barrel, etc. That's a crazy level of work for AOC Bordeaux, although I think they are now at cru bourgoise price points. In general - I love Davies wines. He is an American negociant/importer who works in Bordeaux, but tends to do business outside of the usual La Place methods from what I understand. So he represents typically smaller production estates, and seems to guide them in the vineyard/elevage, rather than just in the marketplace. The wine is dark garnet, cloudy sediment, and shows fennel/cedar on the nose. Blackberry flavors on the palate, length is 25 seconds. Good balance between fruit, tannin, acidity which are well resolved, and now coming into secondary levels of flavors. I don't think it will develop more from here -- and ten years is a long time for a Bordeaux Superieur -- but I also wouldn't be overly worried about it tipping over either. Held up well over two days, just popped and poured. B+ in my ledger. I'm looking for more of ALL of Davies wines, especially the ones below the Pavie price tags. His portfolio is getting bigger, and I'm assuming that places he helped, but doesn't import directly any more (like Charmail) still keep some of their knowledge. Happily, I found that one of my favorite retailers has a good relationship with him, and he visits periodically, which they support by buying broadly, even vintages without flashy scores.

Some of his wines would be good to insert into a tasting, blind, to see what people think without preconceptions of his weltanschaung.

[Roel]

"Stephane Derononcourt consulting, cover cropping, green harvesting, leaf pulling, low yields". This is so-2005 and fortunately, the better properties return to mother nature doing her thing. Still, thanks for the TN. Have to check out Beaulieu here if it's worth trying!

[AKR]

Davies mark has been left also on the estates he once touched. He has offerings at all price points.

[robertgoulet]

Loved '06...Lathered in leather

[DavidG]

I may not be keeping up. I know that late harvest, very ripe, cold soak and heavy-handed use of oak are hallmarks of the too-modern winemaker. Are green harvesting, leaf pulling, high density planting and low yields also now considered too-modern techniques? Or only if they result in high brix and low acid?

[AlohaArtakaHoundsong]

I've attributed the grapey bouquet and some superficial fruitiness in some Bordeaux to the cold soak. I could be wrong. It (the bouquet) seems out of place but that's just my preference. I know a lot of maybe even most estates do it, maybe it's a best practice even, so maybe it's the length of the maceration that matters.

[AKR]

Perhaps those effects are observed when that kind of production is consumed young, but at age ten this was pretty impressive, and as mentioned I do not think if it was served blind it would have been denounced as Mega Purple Plonk. I was so charmed by Davies wines that I've been reading up on him, and his winemaking notes (not just on his represented estates) and it seems the view is that the less heralded the terroir - the more work they have to put in.

Having seen the effects on the grape vines that grow in my mothers back yard I can see tangibly the simple effects of how, as vines age, the berries change. When my father planted them a long time ago - the berries were tart, under ripe. Roll forward over the decades and the production is much smaller, but berries are ripe, and have good flavor.

I think the cold soak is uncommon. Oliver Seze was doing it first I believe maybe 20 years ago. But it still seems to be an avant garde technique, held in suspicion by those with vaunted terroirs.

[Rudi Finkler]

I bought 12 bottles of 2005 Beaulieu Comtes de Tastes shortly after release. In its youth, this wine was absolutely superb. Fife, six years later, it was so closed that it was painful to think of the potential it clearly has. Last week, I opened three bottles of this generic Bordeaux. Horribly corked, one bottle after another...

[AKR]

You had 3 corked bottles in a row? That's astonishing. Do you think its possible there was some other kind of taint, internal to the wine not the closure?

Over 20+ years, I've had two corked in a row once. And when that happened, I gamely had some of the second bottle over 3 days, just to be sure it wasn't the wine being nasty.

Still remember a 97 Fetzer 'Sundial' Chard as being the worst corkiness I'd never experienced. It made the entire kitchen smell. Never been able to buy one again based on the gag reflex the label causes me! I really wish more producers would try alternate, modern sealants.

[Rudi Finkler]

Indeed, that's astonishing, AKR. But it is not the first time that I had several corked bottles in a row in the past four decades. In most cases a symptom of serious cork problems of the producer.BTW, the record so far is six bottles of 1986 Potensac…
Have three bottles of Beaulieu left which I will open in the coming months. I will report.