Bordeaux 2006 at Ten Years: Margaux
Almost never a favoured appellation, save for exceptional years such as 1983, 2010 and perhaps 2015, Margaux has put in a decent but not exceptional performance in 2006. Of course, there are some great wines from the usual suspects, but among the other classed growths we can also find some rather ordinary ones.
I think if I challenged you to guess my top three performing wines in this appellation (no cheating by scrolling down to the notes, now) you could probably name them without too much difficulty. If I asked you to guess exactly how I ranked them, however, could you do it? I suspect this secondary challenge might prove rather more difficult, as not for the first time I have found the ‘accepted’ order of superiority as per the 1855 classification jumbled around a little. Bordeaux doesn’t always follow the rules, which is why it always pays to taste, whether at the primeurs, just after the wines have been bottled, or – as here – as the wines mature.
If you are in the market for some highly ranked Margaux, you could do a lot worse than the 2006 Château Rauzan-Ségla; this has a dusty concentration of fruit and some real conviction for the future, but it also shows a really charming rose-petal character that really ties it to the appellation. Of my top three it is also the best priced, by a country mile. Slightly superior (but about four times the price) is the 2006 Château Palmer, a remarkable wine full of black bean and truffle, with depth and perfumed complexity. It was confident and exotic, and my favourite wine of the flight.
