Bordeaux 2006 at Four Years: The Médoc Communes
Although on this assessment the wines of the Médoc gave me a little less excitement than those from Pessac in this vintage, there is no shortage of pleasure here. And rightly so; after all, the tasting spans the full range of potential quality, from a trio of first growth estates at the top (Mouton, Lafite and Margaux; Latour is a persistent absentee at this event) right through to the lesser known estates of Moulis, Listrac and the Haut-Médoc. There has to be a good bottle in there somewhere! Starting with my ever-brief assessment of St Estèphe a half-dozen wines (not a bad turnout from this commune) put on a good show, helped along by the presence of a very fine Cos d’Estournel which possessed both a beautifully expressive nose and a finely defined aromatic profile; an attractive wine which I would be very pleased to find in my cellar.
There is more to say with Pauillac, however, where there is fairly broad success, with some real high-points of pleasure. Of course, one of those highs comes from Mouton. Looking back to my previous assessments of this vintage, my only primeurs opportunity to taste the 2006 vintage was at the Bibendum tasting in London, and I wasn’t fortunate enough to visit Bordeaux nor to taste Mouton-Rothschild. Nevertheless, the prevailing opinion coming from the mouths and pens of both merchants and critics was that in 2006 Mouton had played a blinder, pulling out all the stops to fashion what many people were already declaring – based at that time on an embryonic barrel sample – to be the wine of the vintage.
