Château Bernadotte: Tasting & Drinking
Most of my early encounters with the wines of Château Bernadotte were primeur samples, although I do recall some wines tasted in London alongside a vertical tasting of Château Pichon-Lalande quite a few years ago. In more recent times I have tasted any number of post-bottling samples with the Alliance des Cru Bourgeois du Médoc. On the whole older vintages have tended to be quite straightforward and robust, and I think they showed the sandy edge to the terroir rather plainly.
Nevertheless there was a lot of investment and effort under the direction of Sylvie Cazes, head of the Roederer properties in Bordeaux, and I did have hopes for a more elegant style from Château Bernadotte. In 2012 Cazes left, to be replaced by the talented Nicolas Glumineau, so the potential was still there, but a very short while afterwards Bernadotte was sold. Nevertheless the new proprietors, the King Power Group, seem to be investing in the property. While I have my doubts about their move towards machine harvesting, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
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