Château La Grave à Pomerol: Tasting & Drinking
The wines of Château La Grave à Pomerol provided some of my earlier encounters with Pomerol, in particular with the 1982 and 1989 vintages. More recently, however, most of my tasting notes relate to primeurs samples rather than wines with the benefit of many years of maturity. The wines are generally regarded as more entry-level Pomerols, and while I agree they are not at the level of the grander wines of the Moueix portfolio such as Château Trotanoy, Château La Fleur-Pétrus, Providence or Château Hosanna, neither are they wines to be ignored. They are full and admirable wines, not brimming with tension and excitement perhaps, but capable of aging more convincingly than many people perhaps imagine, and they are more affordable than many of their peers too, always an important point when it comes to Pomerol.
In recent years benevolent vintages such as 2010 and 2009 have produced good results here, although we should not overlook less exciting vintages which did, to my palate, favour the right bank a little, especially Pomerol. The 2012 vintage showed well when tasted early on, but I found the 2008 even more impressive especially taking into account the lesser nature of the vintage. I hope one day I can revisit these vintages to see if they turned out as well as the earlier vintages I encountered. (20/1/10, updated 28/8/14)
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