TN: 2000 Sociando-Mallet

[Jay Winton]

Opened for a few hours before consumption. This was a different beast than the first bottle of my case I opened last year. That one had prominent green bell pepper notes which I found not too pleasant for my palate. This tasted like a fairly mature bottle right up my alley. Good fruit with a nice tannic structure. Quite drinkable now but no rush at all. Perfect cork and fill. Grade of A-.

[OrlandoRobert]

Opened for a few hours before consumption. This was a different beast than the first bottle of my case I opened last year. That one had prominent green bell pepper notes which I found not too pleasant for my palate. This tasted like a fairly mature bottle right up my alley. Good fruit with a nice tannic structure. Quite drinkable now but no rush at all. Perfect cork and fill. Grade of A-.

I love this wine and have gone through about a case of the 2000 as well. I think this vintage has a lot of variability for SM. Even for a Loire Cab Franc freak like me, some bottles show too green, which is shocking for this modestly solar vintage. My last bottle was gorgeous.

[JimHow]

Same experience here, about 8 bottles of my case were wildly green, about 4 were like Mr Vino described.
I enjoyed the experiences with both the green ones and the less green ones.

[Blanquito]

I love SM, and for my money the 95 and 96 are amongst the world’s greatest values for current drinking mature wine, but I recently sold my remaining 5 bottles of the 2000 for these same reasons (lean, green, mean).

[DavidG]

I must have lucked out. Loved every bottle I’ve drunk.

[dstgolf]

The 2000 SM is a love/hate relationship. Almost through a case with 1-2 bottles left and for us the greenness has been off putting. Those who enjoy green bell pepper in their wine AKA David G don't have issues but we have a low tolerance and have had hope upon opening each bottle but mainly suffered through them. I can't remember one that was free of green. The 05's aren't quite as prominently green but it is still there. I must say for our taste I'm not as thrilled with owning these as much as others on the board. The influencers here got to me and I jumped on the bandwagon buying before tasting which we have little to no opportunity here. I think/hope the last purchase were the 08's which 2000-8 leaves me with too much green left in the cellar still!!

[Jay Winton]

Interesting comments. I read somewhere that the grapes were picked too early thus accounting for the greenness. I have one bottle of the 96 left. How is that drinking now? The case of 96 was my first purchase enabled by the BWE devils.

[AKR]

I don't know what it is but I get a lot of bottle variability from this estate. It's tolerable - in that I won't sell what I have - but it makes me reluctant to reload on newer years.

[Claudius2]

Jay
I had the 96 at an event just before COVID last year, and it was very good, showing some maturity.
It has developed some leather, tobacco, iron and savoury characters, but not overt green characters at all.
Good core of dark fruit and cedary oak.
The 96 was surprisingly nice to drink young, and I recall drinking a few bottles of it in London in 2000, and it was delightful.
I bought a case en primeur which was consumed quite young. It had a wonderful purity of cool, linear dark fruit that reminded me of LLC.

The 2000 I also ordered en primeur and ended up sending most to auction.
The first bottle I thought must have been out of condition - rather nasty to be honest.
I don't like overt green characters in any wine, and the bell pepper and herbs were too much for me.
I opened a few more thinking surely, SM can't be that nasty. Well, they were all the same and in fact, they seemed to get worse not better with age.
I packed up the remainder for sale.

The 2001 was also the same - to my palate, just too green and vegetal and if tasted blind, I would of thought it was a Loire Cab Franc from a lesser year.
In any case, it got sent to auction (along with a lot of other wine) when I moved to Singapore nearly 12 years ago.

The 2000 and 2001 put me off SM for a while, a wine I had purchased since 1982 vintage EP.
So I bought the 2010, 2016 and 2019 on EP and will just forget about them all for several more years.

[AKR]

over three days, double decanted and vinturri'd - scorch, char, eucalyptus. more depth and interest than a 2001 some 6-9 mos ago

later lots of bell pepper and other pyrazine flavors. still lots of fruit and life to go with the distinct flavors

[Jay Winton]

Another 2000 SM last night and it may have been the best bottle yet-decanted through a filter and it sat for an hour or so. A really elegant wine with no green at all; I can't think of another Bordeaux with this most bottle variation in one vintage. Also a 2009 Cantermerle-better than I expected and a 2006 Meyney-pretty tannic and not too interesting though it was bottle number 3. The guest seemed quite happy with the wines thought and mrs v's stuffed pork tenderloin.

[JimHow]

Agreed, the 2000 Sociando is very variable, I drank through a case, I would say that 7 showed overwhelming greenness, and 5 did not. Not that the green bottles were a bust, all 12 bottles were great in their own way, but there definitely seemed to be variation.

[Jay Winton]

I took a bottle of the 2000 to a dinner party last night. Once again, it showed very well with none of the greeness in earlier bottles and everyone enjoyed it. Could age be reducing the variability of this wine? I bought a case on release and it has been properly stored.

[DavidG]

Thats good news on the ‘00 SM Jay. Glad they are showing well. Does greeness integrate lime oak over time?