Bordeaux 2010 Primeurs: Cheval Blanc
Cheval Blanc and Ausone are like chalk and cheese. The first looks down on a valley of vines to the south of the town, the château small, and the cellars have an ancient Roman feel to them. Cheval Blanc is grander, one of few truly impressive châteaux on the right bank. And whereas Ausone’s refurbishments are low-key, Cheval Blanc’s are huge; behind the château there is a massive building site, from which new space-age-style cellars are growing.
In this vintage the wines also provide very different sensorial experiences; despite this, the blend in the 2010 Cheval Blanc matches that of 2010 Ausone almost exactly, with 56% Cabernet Franc and 44% Merlot. Clearly there are many more variables that influence the style of any given wine than just the assemblage! Having indicated how important the blend was on the left bank, and how the inclusion of Merlot seemed to have such a strong effect on the quality of the wine, in particular the character of the tannins, I have to acknowledge that here on the right bank – where the vast majority of wines are Merlot-dominant, or at least contain much larger percentages of this variety – there are still some brilliant wines, with silky smooth tannins. Partly we are looking at different terroirs here, of course, as clay and limestone is more dominant, and there is less of the gravel that marks out the left bank communes. But what happens in the cellar must also be important I think; differences in use of extraction techniques, such as délestage and remontage, for example.
