Bordeaux 2010: Tasting in 2012
It is now a little over one year since I first tasted the wines of the 2010 Bordeaux vintage during the primeurs, in April 2011. The tastings were held against a backdrop of mild incredulity, as – until the independent reports began filtering out, revealing the fact that this really was another great vintage – few were prepared to believe the words of the Bordelais when they said that the wines were once again of extremely high quality. After the joys of 2009, in a world jaded by years of Bordeaux spin, the thought that we might have another top-class vintage on our hands, giving us a back-to-back pair, just seemed too good to be true.
The annual Grand Cru Classé Tasting gave me an opportunity not only to revisit and reassess some of these wines, to see if they still held that promise of greatness, but also to taste a number of wines not already encountered during the primeurs last year. Two prime examples of such new encounters were d’Aiguilhe and La Mondotte, both of which are in the ownership of Stephan von Neipperg (pictured). Neither estate participates in Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux activities, and thus the tasting described here was a rare opportunity to taste the wines at this stage in the UK, as they will not be present at the UGC tasting of the 2010 vintage scheduled for October this year, in London. This annual tasting is more useful than I had realised – maybe I will make the trek to London for it again next year!
