London 2004 dinner

[Comte Flaneur]

Ten friends gathered tonight in the City of London for a 2004 Bordeaux dinner.

Some brief impressions of our wines:

White Bordeaux: Bouscat 2008, fresh Sauvignon on lead guitar/vocal, with a rhythm section of waxy-lanolin semillon, with decent structure and finish

Flight one: St-Emilion

Larcis Ducasse - overtly sweet berry, plummy, fruit, ripe modern somewhat oaky style. Not complex but not offensive either.

Grand-Mayne - more subdued, less obvious oak, nice enough but like its flight mate a tad anodyne and one dimensional.


Flight two: Graves

Haut-Bailly - graphite, red fruit, polished, smooth, developing complexity, hits all the graves-y notes; lively with a fabulous long finish

La Tour Haut-Brion - nice raspy tension and nervosity, more old school, and less slick than its flight mate. Fabulous earthiness.

Great flight.


Flight three: Margaux

Giscours - good nose, berries, it has become more resolved since I last had it three years ago, but still structured for the long haul and still a tad clunky, needing a bit more time

Pavillon Rouge - took a bit to open with lovely Margaux berries, minerality and lead pencil. It has the chateau Margaux signature. Beautiful wine.


Flight four: Pauillac

Batailley - classic cedar cigar box Pauillac, accessible and really enjoyable in an old school kind of way; a really pleasant surprise

GPL - modern style, a bit insipid, flatters to deceive, not bad but caught in no-man’s land really. (Cue Jim)

Lynch-Bages - modern, v classy/stylish, still cocooned, good potential. Would be v. happy to own this.


Flight five: St-J plus ringer

Lagrange - low key like the 2002, subdued with green notes; another shrinking violet Lagrange.

Mystery wine - fruits allied to confected rubbery notes. It was Warwick Trilogy 2004 from South Africa.


There were four standout wines tonight: the two graves/Pessacs, the Pavillon Rouge and the Lynch. Haut-Bailly deservedly was wotn, just ahead of the Pavilion Rouge, both of which were ahead of the next two: the Lynch and the La Tour Haut Brion.

Based on this showing we agreed that:
2004 is a good vintage
2004 is a useful vintage in that generally speaking the wines are accessible and the tannins are not obtrusive

[Nicklasss]

Thanks Comte for this report. It is always interesting to have a larger region impression of that vintage. From your tasting, Pessac seems the success story of the vintage.

The two Saint-Émilion are giving a vision about the modern style 2004, And it seems as hard time.

Myself, I really liked the wines from Pomerol in that vintage, the Trotanoy and Église-Clinet being both very stylish, decent concentration and great poise complexity.

Nic

[DavidG]

Mmmm, the Haut Bailly and Tour Haut Brion sound wonderful.

Thanks for the report.

[jckba]

I love vintage retrospective dinners such as the this and thourougly enjoyed reading your notes ( sans ratings . Back at this year’s UGC I was speaking to Daina Paulin (Commercial Managwr @ Haut Bailly who was pouring at the NYC event) about the rise in quality of Haut Bailly which I pegged at the 2005 vintage based mostly off Parker ratings and she kind of said that we like to think that the changes were already apparent in the 2004, so it’s nice to hear that her opinion might carry some truth.

[Antoine]

Excellent report Comte! I have a lot of 2004s as it is my (2nd) wedding year...although none of these. Had Pichon Lalande and VCC over the last year and both were very great.

[Claret]

I only have La Dominique. Clearly better than Parker's high 70 point initial review.

[marcs]

I've had really good experiences with 2004. I think it's a better overall vintage than 2002. It has more charm and the right bank is a lot better. Had a terrific 2004 La Conseillante the other day, a terrific 2004 Le Gay over the summer. Pichon Baron and Leoville Barton are both terrific. Yeah, it doesn't have huge fruit but it has enough and I'd rather open a 2004 right now than a 2005.

[Comte Flaneur]

I have to agree Marc. I still think 2002 is generally strong on the LB but I have more of a question mark on this vintage after the lacklustre Lagrange, and last two showings of LLC in NYC 2016. The 2004 vintage is clearly better but we had a couple of duds among them Lagrange and GPL.

[Blanquito]

Since we are on the fun and fraught topic of vintage generalizations, what about an updated ranking of the kindred spirits of the last decade: 2001 vs 2002 vs 2004 vs 2006 vs 2008?

I haven’t tried enough to have an opinion, but Parker sure loved the 08s (much more than most critics). I tried a good number of 08s on release and they were hard work, stern and seemingly without a lot of fruit to stand up to the structure.