Bordeaux Wine Enthusiasts

Bought on release. I tried a couple over recent years and it is a wine that has required a lot of patience. I've not opened one for a few years, so time to give it another shot. Somehow that pink capsule gives you goosebumps...because it is unique...you realise you are opening something potentially special. Well at least a wine located adjacent to Chateau Petrus. The most hallowed terroir in the world along side that kink in the road on the other side of the Gironde and the vineyards surrounding Romanee-Conti behind the village of Vosne-Romanee. This wine is finally coming out of its shell. I have a fair bit of VCC from the 98, 00 and 01 vintages so I have been looking forward to the future. Maybe the future is getting closer. Or maybe it is now. When you sniff 98 VCC it has a rich aristocratic nose with is sophisticated and no longer primary, and which has evolved into secondary and tertiary pleasures. It has rich, luxurious berries-in-to-autumnal notes, at the same time very bright and lifted, with complex tobacco notes on the palate, and good persistence, with a fair thwack of residual tannins. Rich, ripe, powerful and full-bodied, as it evolves it becomes even richer and more full bodied, with rich fruit cake notes taking over. It becomes clear that this merlot-dominated. I just learned from reading Jeff Leve that this vintage of VCC unusually contains no cabernet franc, it is 90% merlot and 10% cab-sav. There is usually more cab in the blend. It still retains a steely lattice of austerity, with riveting notes of iron ore, and a fair bit of residual tannin on the back end. After a few hours the back end austere streak starts to dominate. This seems like a wine which is just entering its drinking window. I read that more recent vintages like 2009 and 2010 move it up to an altogether higher level. They must be something special. I am pretty happy to drink theses three vintages over the rest of my life. Of the three the one that shows the most promise is the 2000, but this was a thrilling showing from the 1998.

Nice. That's a wine one doesn't see often.

Mmmm.
I've been looking at $500 Virgin air fares from Logan to London this fall, I'd really like to try to get to London and Cambridge for a few days and drink some VCC.... My trial schedule has new so damned insane this year!

Jim

Why don't you come over in October. Danny and Danielle will be here on the 8th and 9th...we are having dinner at mine on the 8th. Early October is a nice time to visit London.

I'll have to check my schedule Ian, I'm a prisoner of my criminal trial schedule and this local municipal campaign in which I'm involved.
The fares are certainly priced right, $494 on British Airways Logan to Heathrow from Oct. 4-10.

That is a very cheap...with the pound on its knees the U.K. Is t that expensive anymore...fingers crossed!

VCC had an extraordinary reputation in the nineteenth century, and the wines since 2005 have been as good as anything produced in Pomerol bar Petrus since then. The 2005 is my favorite, but 2009 runs it close, and 2010 manages to be well balanced in a year where alcohol levels on the Right Bank were particularly high.

I had the 1998 as part of a flight along with Trotanoy and L'Evangile. Amazing was how different they were on the evolutionary curve. The most backward was the Trot, but so incredibly promising. Evangile was fairly open, and although it did not quite have the depth of the other two, was easy to like and worked well with prime rib. In between was the VCC, still shedding some of its tannin, but again with extraordinary potential and marked with an attractive herbal (not bell pepper) element.

Arvind, is that the wine you opened at the goodbye party in your 57th street place?

I don't think so. Maybe it was a Certan de May?

It was Certan de May. My mistake.

Re: VCC: their vines are spitting distance from Petrus