Bordeaux 2004 at Two Years: St Emilion & Pomerol
I have a perennial problem with the wines of the right bank, in that all too often I find many wines vinified for power and extract rather than freshness and finesse. I call it the Right Bank Disease. Perusing my notes from the 2003 and 2005 vintages reveals a number of such wines; not so in 2004, however, where the right bank has, to my palate, enjoyed some considerable success. Many wines are supple, appropriately extracted and structured, and showing great potential. Merlots are generally harvested earlier than the Cabernets, but this can be a double edged sword; in this vintage it may have worked in my favour.
I enjoyed tasting many of the wines from St Emilion, although one or two were rather hollow and we can only hope for the sake of those that have already purchased them, based on en primeur tastings (an increasingly pointless exercise) that they fill out in bottle. But I was wowed by the Troplong-Mondot, where Christine Valette poured a fabulously complete wine that transcended everything produced in the commune. For me, admittedly in the absence of first growths and super-seconds, I think this was the wine of the day.
