Bordeaux Wine Enthusiasts

AlexR

No need to get angry Izak.
People disagree.
And there is no objective yardstick.
Neither me nor you.

By the way, my tasting notes on 2023 Cantemerle are indeed on my blog!

Alex

AlexR

Here are my own notes: Nose: soft and simple. Palate: Much more character on the palate. Svelte and velvety, a good Médoc in minor mode. The English would view this as the perfect luncheon claret because of its lightness and drinkability. Strawberry and red fruit flavors and a cool aftertaste. As al...

AlexR

David,

No, it's just that as a shorthand it's symmetrical with Baron and avoids confusion.

Obviously, there is no right or wrong.

It's like pronunciation. Even Parisians don't say Blaye, Climens, Desmirail, Kirwan, Lynch Bages, etc. the way the Bordelais do.

AR

AlexR

PC = Pontet Canet, non?

A lady I met not long ago who had worked at Pichon Comtesse for years said that Americans in particular refer to Pichon Lalande.

Remember the confusion when no one could remember if it was an "s" or a "z" in each of the Rauzans?

AR

AlexR

Oh, the other wines were:

Champagne Veuve Clicquot Brut Carte Jaune
Château d'Esclans Garrus 2022
Bâtard-Montrachet Grand Cru 2018 (whose is not stated) C
Champagne Veuve Clicquot « La Grande Dame » 2015

AR

AlexR

Jim,

Please don't pull the plug.

There are other options, for sure.

Alex

AlexR

From the New York Times : Battalions of liveried waiters in white bow ties, bearing silver trays, served with impeccable precision a four-course meal accompanied by champagne and a 2006 Château Margaux that had taken 18 years to achieve perfection. There was a light salad that turned plates into min...

AlexR

Notes out of 5 stars.

Everything's here: www.bordeauxwineblog.com

Alex R.

AlexR

The Bordeaux?

AlexR

Happy birthday Ed.
That's a real benchmark of a Bday and birth year wines are always special, however good they are intrinsically.

I once had lunch at Ch. Margaux and the wine with the cheese was my birth year (1953).
I felt that if I died then and there, I would die happy

.

All the best,
Alex

AlexR

I'm watching the trial. It reminds me in a way of Starr prosecuting Clinton. And hey, let's admit it, there is likewise a little prurient interest here... What appalled me was this from the NY Times: "There's no crime", Trump said."I've been here for almost four weekes in an icebox, t...

AlexR

Izak, I have deleted my post. I am in the process of writing up my notes on the en primeur tastings. Your question about ratings is indeed pertinent. I have decided to adopt the Guide Hachette system of using stars from one to five. No system is ideal, but this is the one that suits me best. I have ...

AlexR

Jay, I'm aware of herbaceousness issues with Sociando Mallet in the past, 1982 being a case in point. However, the bottle of the 2000 I drank did not have that problem. Perhaps other people have had a different experience. Bottle variation is a well-known factor. And also, as you say, (nearly) a qua...

AlexR

Sociando Mallet is a wonderful success story. Jean Gautreau, a wine broker turned négociant, bought a tiny, little-known, and much-neglected vineyard in the northern Médoc in 1969. These 5 hectares of vines in Saint-Seurin-de-Cadourne, just north of Saint Estèphe, have since grown to 83 hectares and...

AlexR

I grew up, so to speak, with the 20 point system for rating wines, which has as many advantages and disadvantages as any other system. As time went on, the world largely abandoned this more European way of attempting to objectify wine quality and adopted the 100 point scale used by one Robert Parker...

AlexR

What was the best Bordeaux vintage so far this century? Putting aside the oversimplification inherent in such a question, most wine lovers would probably scratch their head and end up picking from 2000, 2005, 2010, 2016, or 2019. 2005 certainly has a good reputation by anyone’s reckoning, and so I d...

AlexR

Le Puy is beyond quirky. Their wines have shown very spotty vniification with resulting flaws. They are very popular in Japan because they figure prominently in the Japanese manga "The Drops of God", which focuses on fine wine. The owners have been lobbying hard for years to create a separ...

AlexR

Hi Mark, Thanks for your detailed notes. I'm a big fan of the 2009s. Received wisdom is that 2010 is "better" in that it was a cooler vintage with greater acidity and, therefore, greater potential. Maybe. But the 2009s were goregeous from the get-go. I have a marked preference for the Left...

AlexR

Three wines with dinner on Saturday night. We kicked off with 2006 Castelnau Champagne. I was unfamiliar with this house. The wine seemed far younger than its age with good tension and fine balance. A nice discovery. We then had 2003 Ch. La Tour Blanche with duck foie gras. Sauternes and foie gras i...

AlexR

Is that a négociant blended wine? To be fair, traditional Bordeaux drinkers the other side of the Atlantic have always been more Médoc oriented. The big bruisers of Saint Emilion, while not a thing of the past, are certainly less prevalent today. Between adapting to climate change and planting much ...

AlexR

Pontac Lynch. The name is so steeped in the history of the Médoc that it sounds almost made up! And yet… These two famous wine families – the Pontacs, onetime owners of Haut Brion, Lafite, Latour, Mouton, and Calon Ségur, and the Lynch family of Lynch Bages, Lynch Moussas, and Dauzac – joined forces...

AlexR

Was this wine dry?

AR

AlexR

Listrac (pronounced "Lees-trahk) is probably the Médoc communal appellation with the lowest profile, even less so than Moulis. Although the latter is of comparable size (630 hectares vs. 570 for Listrac), it boasts a greater reputation and better-known châteaux. What makes Listrac unique? For a...

AlexR

Hi, This is not a golden age for Bordeaux wine. They've started uprooting 10,000 hectares of vines because of overproduction, and that is certainly not enough. Wine consumption in France has declined markedly, especially that of red wine. Young people, in particular, are drinking less and drinking o...

AlexR

I had the Tarlant "Zéro" two weeks ago.
This was very fresh and focused, but perhaps à bit austere for my taste, and not just referring to the dosage.

Alex

AlexR

Izak, I wrote: "Parker did, however, give the nod to some new generation wines that did not please lovers of classical claret." That comment refers to "some wines", Izak, certainly not most or all of them! No one in Bordeaux believes that Parker had no effect on winemaking at fam...

AlexR

Half bottle of Charles Heidsieck ar breakfast with scrambled eggs and smoked salmon.
Obligatory red rose.
Gotta look after your woman

AR

AlexR

This is an oft-raised issue. I think that Parker was definitely good for Americans because he was the first American to speak French, go to Bordeaux, and show an ability to think outside the box. He emancipated Americans from English wine critics and explained wine to them in a way they could unders...

AlexR

A Belgian wine writer once referred to the wines of Moulis as "les Margaux de l'intérieur", which I thought was very apposite.

AR

AlexR

I drank this on Sunday with a roast free-range chicken. Isn’t it amazing how such a simple dish, if the bird is first rate (i.e. not industrially raised) and cooked right, provide so much pleasure? By the same token, the thin-skinned creamy-fleshed Agata potatoes with crème fraiche and chive were a ...

AlexR

I served this wine on Saturday with a roast leg of lamb. I used a magnum decanter I picked up at a flea market not long ago for 10 euros. It is often easy to find really nice decanters for sale at rock bottom prices because there is no matching stopper. Seeing as I don’t ever use the stoppers anyway...

AlexR

OMG, 19 vintages, including some legendary ones. And such good tasting notes! What strikes me is that the "first of the firsts" only garners one score above 94 (for the 1986 vintage). What gives? I'm a tough grader myself, but even so... I have tasted Lafite en primeur for a few years with...

AlexR

Hi, Dinner at my house last night. Apéritif: Grand Cru blanc de blancs “Les Aventures“ from A.R. Lenoble. Blend of 2002 and 2006. Bottled in 2017. Rope capsule! A little oxidation there, but not very bothersome. Clearly an older Champagne that to me was past its best. Nevertheless enjoyable. 2005 Ch...

AlexR

Harry, Château Talbot is indeed in Saint Julien. But when I wrote “1986 Talbot: Jim bought a bottle of this in Saint Emilion”, that was not a mistake. Jim, Tom, Tim, Gail, and I visited Etablissements Martin in Saint Emilion, and this is where Jim found the bottle, in the underground cellar where th...

AlexR

It's funny. The Québécois défend the French language far more than the French do themselves. It is very common for English words to be simply adopted in France whereas their use is monitored according to à set of laws ln la Belle Province. I bring this up because Jim used the term "week-end&quo...

AlexR

I had never been to Latin America until last month, so I was pretty excited about a trip to Argentina, a country five times the size of mainland France. My wife and I arrived on the eve of the presidential elections there. Despite a massive campaign budget (funded, it seems, by the government in pow...

AlexR

Thanks for posting Jim. It was great to see you and the others even if your trip was short. There are an infinite number of things to discover in Bordeaux! Yes, by all means come back and we'll continue where we left off! I might add that visiting châteaux with just a few people is easier than with ...

AlexR

i have taken part in Guide Hachette tastings for years, so I'm kind of biased about them :-). As opposed to one critic's opinion of a wine he has not tasted blind, 4-member juries are totally impartial. Jurors are almost exclusively wine professionals There is no way of knowing what the wines are (d...

AlexR

The tip of the tip of the iceberg.

What a bunch of fabulous wines!

Seems impossible to drink any better.

Alex R.

AlexR

My Christmas bottle was 2009 La Tour Figeac, which exceeded my (already high) expectations. Great wine.

AR

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