Bordeaux 2009 at Two Years: St Julien & Margaux
There are eleven classed growth châteaux in the St Julien commune, and the majority – including some top-flight estates, such as Léoville-Barton and Léoville-Poyferré – participate in UGC events. Only two, Ducru-Beaucaillou and Léoville-Las-Cases demur, but even without these two the commitment from the other classed growth proprietors, together with Gloria, allows for a fairly thorough examination of the commune in any given year. This was certainly the case with the 2009 vintage.
St Julien: The Wines
The commune showed very consistently during the primeur tastings, and this carried through to this most recent assessment now that the wines are in bottle. On the whole, the wines showed more or less as I expected. Nevertheless, there is always the potential for the finished wines to give a little more than their respective barrel samples (or indeed, a little less), and so I am always prepared for surprises, pleasant or otherwise. And while I certainly saw the potential in Léoville-Poyferré when I tasted it at the UGC primeurs tastings, my note from that tasting unashamedly positive and my score ranking it near the top of the commune, alongside Léoville-Las-Case, I have to confess I thought at the time that I might prefer Léoville-Barton. Somewhat prophetically I wrote:
“I prefer its Barton contemporary, but maybe that’s
just me. So many prefer Poyferré these days“.
