Bordeaux 2006 at Ten Years
Ten years of age is a good point at which to come back to most Bordeaux vintages. In recent years, the only exception that springs to mind is the 2005 vintage, when most of the wines I tasted proved to be reticent and ungiving, clearly in need of more time in the cellar. Perhaps the tannin-rich 2010 vintage will be the same. In most cases though, Bordeaux at ten years of age is usually open and at least ready for reassessment, even if this is a little earlier than I would usually start drinking the wines, which is often somewhere between twelve and fifteen years of age.
There is perhaps a more vintage-specific reason a review of 2006 Bordeaux seems appealing right now, in the context of the 2015 Bordeaux primeurs ‘campaign’. New releases from the 2015 vintage have in many cases come with strident price increases (especially those releases that came later in the campaign), making the wines more expensive than current retail prices for the majority of older vintages. Generalising, looking at the past ten-to-fifteen years, at the time of writing only the wines of 2005, 2009 and 2010 are more expensive than the 2015 releases. This is despite the fact the wines of 2015 have only been assessed as unfinished barrel samples, are several years from delivery, and are many more years – perhaps ten or fifteen, depending on your personal preferences – from being ready to drink.
