In the last couple of days I have devoted some time to reflecting, and thinking about and analysing my left bank rankings, managing to dredge up a lot of notes in the process. I am fortunate to be able to draw on a fairly vast dataset of experience, it was just a question of pulling it all together and to think about how this maps into ranking them. I decided to rank wines according to the track record I have experienced with them, overweighting more recent decades.
First growths
Wine #1: Chateau Lafite - I won’t dwell long on Lafite suffice to say that based on considerable experience of vintages spanning 80 years there is no doubt in my mind it is foremost among the first growths. That was apparent at our historic vertical in 2018, and three separate experiences in the US, with BWE people in attendance in the late noughties. After Lafite it is quite close between the next four.
Wine #2 remains Margaux, wine #3 remains Latour, Mouton and Haut-Brion swap places as Mouton moves up to fourth and Haut-Brion slips to fifth. Mouton runs Latour very close for third based on my analysis of my experiences. In fact based on my experiences in the 40 years to 2000, they are neck and neck, and even though I have much more experience with Mouton over the last 20 years, and since 2008, Mouton has been superlative; and so has Latour by all accounts. Many respected professional commentators maintain that Latour not Lafite sets the benchmark, so my innately conservative instincts steer me to leave Latour in third place.
Mouton outperforms Haut-Brion based on my own recollections, but there is no question Haut-Brion should be a first in my opinion, as it consistently albeit marginally outperforms its La Mission sibling. Does La Mission deserve to be a first? Just about but it is a close call...where does one draw the line? I think the demarcation between first and second has an element of randomness. If LMHB, why not Palmer? Good question. Perhaps because Palmer consistently plays second fiddle to Ch. Margaux when you put them toe-to-toe? But that is where I drew the line. And I could easily have put La Mish in as a super second.
(Super) second growths
But I didn’t, and Ch. Palmer is a pretty easy shoe in as top of the second growth pile. I don’t think I need to elaborate...neither do I need to elaborate on why I think Leoville Lascases comes next...After all it shares that special Cabernet terroir with Latour...and Pichon Baron. Neither do I need to justify Pichon Lalande as being next in the pecking order: sensational in the ‘80s when the Baron was nowhere; at least not until 1988. After that the Baron reeled in the Comtessa but both of them had a disappointing decade in the 1990s, with the 1996 Comtessa being the only outstanding wine the two estates produced between 1991 and 1999. But Baron otherwise had a slightly less mediocre decade than Comtessa: however, both of them were well short of LLC and Palmer. Christian Seely catapulted Baron to being among the best super seconds from 2000. Baron famously consistently ‘won’ super second blind tastings. Ever since Seely arrived Comtessa has struggled to cling on to his coattails and really lagged the Baron in the noughties, but really started to pick itself up in the 2010 vintage to hang on to its lead in my ranking.
Now it gets interesting. Who comes next after Baron? Ducru would have a strong shout, and I have sympathy with the view that it is the ‘Lafite of St-Julien’. But I cannot put it next because I have had far too many disappointments beyond the disasters of 1986-90. Even the 1985, which can be sublime, is horribly unreliable. So is the 1982. And I have had so many flawed bottles of older vintages like the 1978. Ducru is ‘my kinda wine’ and I really want to love it even though Bruno flirted with the dark side from 2003, and his wines from 04, 06, 08 are pretty uninspiring...though his 2014 is flat out sensational, kudos BD for flagging.
Montrose does not come next either, because it was way off the pace until the 1989 vintage. The 1982 Montrose was a disaster, and the wines from the 70s and 80s were agricultural and prehistoric. There was a big step up with the 1989 but it is a bit over-rated in my view, and the 1990 suffers from brett. The 1996 is the stand out wine in the 1990s. Things generally improved in the 2000s, the 2003 is a contender for wotv, the chunky 2005 is great, the eight, nine and ten are great, but the estate only really realised its fully potential with the 2016, which is pretty much perfect. From here on Montrose is a strong horse...
Cos does not come next either after a very strong decade in the 1980s, as it was more mixed in the 90s and went on to the dark side in the 00s. But now it is coming back very strongly, like Montrose. These wines, however, have to take a bow to Lynch Bages, which fits in behind Baron in the pecking order. Not only has Lynch been consistent, it is a ‘no bullshit’ kind of wine. There is no danger of Lynch ever going over to the dark side. Think about it. Lynch was strong in the 1970s, a difficult decade, absolutely sensational in the 1980s, as good as any of Comtessa, Cos, Gruaud; pretty good overall in the nineties and the noughties - the 95 and 04 are sheer class - and really has kicked on since 2010. I am betting on Lynch being named one of the top five wines in the 2019 vintage. No question in my mind that this is a worthy super second.
I put Ducru, where I am long on, and optimistic on, the 1995, 1996, 1999, 2000, 2009, 2010 and 2014 vintages, next and then Montrose, but I am thinking that maybe Cos is more deserving given how good it was in the 1980s, when Montrose was nowhere. But such a shame what Jean-Guillaume Prats did to sully his dad’s legacy. I have not tried the 2009 Cos but I have heard horror stories and the 2005 really set the alarm bells ringing when Montrose made such a great trad chunky wine in that year. The last super second is Leoville Barton. The inflection point for this estate was 1999. Otherwise previous to that there were a few notable wines: the 1978 (lovely old church pew/mouse droppings claret), the 1985, the 1988 (the quintessence of claret?), the 1989, the 1990 (a brilliant pair) and the 1994. The consistency and brilliance, not to mention the vfm, of this estate in the last 22 years puts it into the super second category.
I moved Gruaud Larose to the top of this second growth subset because its performance in the 1970s and 1980s puts to shame such resurgent estates like SHL and Haut-Bailly, which wallowed in mediocrity at the time and only got their acts together in the early 2000s. Rauzan Segla comes next on the back of a very strong performance in the 1980s and a proper comeback which started in earnest in the 2010 vintage. Pontet Canet comes third in this category; the inflection came in 1994, and the big step up around 2000. It is a controversial estate still with its creations bordering on being too modern, but I think all told this estate is making great wine. The 2019 is supposed to be sensational; I have not tried it, but I bought it on spec.
Maybe will comment on the 3rds and 4ths in due course.
