Bordeaux 2004 at Ten Years: Pauillac
Ten years on from the harvest, this commune is showing a very confident character in this vintage, with a number of really impressive wines included here. Of course, the presence of three first growths is always going to tend to shift the overall quality level upwards rather than downwards, but even so, looking at the other wines in this appellation, the Pauillac châteaux seem to have done a pretty convincing job in 2004. This was a fairly broad assessment of the commune as well; unlike Pessac-Léognan and St Estèphe, where I have reported on only a handful of châteaux at ten years of age, here I have new notes on more than a dozen wines of this commune. The wines were all tasted in March 2014.
Tasting the Wines
Kicking off was the 2004 Château d’Armailhac, from the Mouton stable. This was a time of change at this château as the general manager Philippe Dhalluin, who has over-arching responsibility for winemaking at Château Mouton-Rothschild, Château d’Armailhac and Château Clerc-Milon, only arrived here from Château Branaire-Ducru in 2003. The wines seem correct for the vintage, and are certainly not overstated, and so it seems to me, ten years on, that he did a very good job. I also thought the 2004 Château Clerc-Milon showed some real character, although it did have a rather loose-knit feel to it on this occasion, and on reviewing my notes I see I have scored it lower than I have done on previous tastings, seven and more years ago. All the same, a good effort here.
