Bordeaux 2010 Primeurs: Pauillac Tasting Notes
Finally, to this important consideration. It is not a Hugo Rose question this time, rather it is one that I have been habitually asking myself these past few weeks. How does 2010 stack up against 2009? There is, on comparing my reviews and scores, almost nothing in it for the commune of Pauillac. Perhaps the crudest method is to simply compare wine with wine, seeing which vintage took the highest score; whereas in other communes there may be a clear winner, in Pauillac it is too close to call. For wines tasted in both vintages, I preferred seven from 2010, nine from 2009, and there are many wines where I see I have given exactly the same score range in both vintages. This does indicate one of the many failings of any wine scoring system; numbers can never convey information on style. The 2009 and 2010 vintages of Pichon-Baron for instance are very, very different wines, but both are of very high quality, and have exactly the same score-range.
Suffice to say that in Pauillac there has been great success, in not one but two consecutive vintages. Beyond that generalisation, if looking for the absolute crème de la crème that this commune has to offer, you have to seek out advice on individual wines. The knockout successes in 2010, beyond the first growths, are without doubt Grand-Puy-Lacoste, Pichon-Baron, Pichon-Lalande and Lynch-Bages, in that order. For value, Pibran holds some promise, although with 50% Merlot in the blend it does not offer the extreme elegance that can be found in the finer Cabernet-dominated cuvées.
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