Bordeaux 2010 Primeurs: Other Rauzans to Celebrate
Happily there are alternatives; Palmer has long been a favourite of course, but these days the revitalised Issan (with its moated château, shown below) should not be overlooked. It was at Issan that I learnt that there are nuances to the 2010 Merlot rule, which states that left bank wines can succeed only if majoring on Cabernet over Merlot. There are a number of wines in Margaux with very significant contributions from this variety, and both Palmer and Issan belong to this contingent. Palmer weighs in with 54% Merlot, a leader in this respect in the appellation and all the left bank communes I think, whereas Issan follows up with a ‘mere’ 39%. Palmer does declare its Merlot in the alcohol though, with 14.5% (the second wine coming in with 49% Merlot and 14.4% alcohol), although Issan has a more restrained 13.7%. Nevertheless, in the mouth the alcohol was not perceptible, and neither wine has any lack of vigour or definition, save for just my niggling, hair-splitting criticism of Palmer’s aromatic profile which I thought had a rather warm, soft-focus feel to it. But if I had been asked to blind-guess the Merlot concentrations, I would have come in with much lower figures than those above. These are both excellent wines.
After Palmer and d’Issan we should look to the Rauzan estates, and for the second vintage in a row both of these properties have turned in admirable performances. This is not out of the ordinary for Rauzan-Ségla, a wine for which I have had a soft spot since I first tasted the elegant and ethereal, almost seamless 1985 and which has really pulled the stops out in recent vintages (the 2009 was a stunner) but for Rauzan-Gassies it is more of a news story. This wine, from one of two major properties owned by the Quié family, has a reputation as a perennial under-achiever, but the 2010 is almost as good as the impressive 2009.
