Bordeaux 2006 at Four Years: Pessac-Léognan
I came to this tasting with the expectation that I would find my favourite wine either somewhere in the right bank communes, or perhaps from Pauillac, the former because this is often ‘sold’ as a right-bank vintage (indeed, this tasting would confirm that…to a degree) and the latter because a certain Pauillac first growth was widely touted as Wine of the Vintage during the primeur tastings.
To my surprise, it was not a wine from St Emilion, Pomerol or Pauillac that made my soul sing loudest on the day. No, it was one from Pessac-Léognan, a deliciously seductive wine with a tight frame of tannins giving it a balanced, harmonious, fine-boned structure in the mouth and which will also carry the wine along for many, many years. This wine will, I suspect, make wonderful old bones. The fruit quality is dense and concentrated, yet overall the composition remains fresh despite its breadth and texture. This is a monumental effort, on a near-equal footing with the magnificent 2005 vintage. How I wish I could have this wine in my cellar!
Are you thinking of Haut-Brion? Is that the obvious candidate? I suspect so, but Haut-Brion is not my favourite here, which means of course it must be La Mission Haut-Brion, a wine not even deemed worthy of standing alongside its peers on the first growth table at this tasting (where four of the five left-bank first growths stood, alongside Cheval Blanc). Instead I found it trying to blend in amongst its communal peers, Domaine de Chevalier, Haut-Bailly and so on. How the team at La Mission managed to fashion such a glorious mouthful I don’t know.
