Château Desmirail: Tasting & Drinking
My experience with older vintages of Château Desmirail does not stretch back to the Mendelssohn era, sadly, and it only kicks off after the estate was revivified by Lucien Lurton. The 1982 vintage, a wine from the very early years under Lurton’s control, was very good and clearly indicated that his new project had some legs. Happily the Lurton family seem to have been intent on making good on this early promise. Château Desmirail has undoubtedly been one of the rising stars of the Margaux appellation over the last couple of decades, the wines on occasion outstripping their reputation, which as always in these situations tended to lag behind the quality of what was in the bottle. This meant that, for a while, the wines of Château Desmirail were among the best value cru classé wines on the market.
A number of more recent vintages I have tasted are worth considering. The 2005 and 2006 in particular have their good points, although the quality took a step up with the 2009 and 2010 vintages. Unusually, bearing in mind that 2010 seemed to me to be particularly strong in Margaux, I preferred the former vintage to the latter. But I would happily drink either. Thereafter there comes a run of fairly dull vintages for the Bordeaux region, up to and including 2014 in the case of this estate, and it was not really until 2015 and 2016 that things really begin to get interesting again here.
On the whole, the wines of Château Desmirail today remain worthy of our attention, providing a well-made style that has not lost sight of its Margaux origins, and the prices remain attainable. Well, more attainable than many other cru classé wines, anyway. (30/1/09, updated 14/1/11, 5/9/18)
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