Bordeaux 2011 Cru Bourgeois: Haut-Médoc
After a rather variable performance from the châteaux of the Médoc communes, things picked up a little with the Haut-Médoc appellation. There is still a lot of variation here in terms of quality, but the peaks stretch a little higher, with one or two really convincing wines to be found hidden among all the lesser cuvées, including what was without a doubt the best wine of the tasting.
The wine that wears this accolade so lightly is the 2011 Château Belle-Vue; this estate, which is located just to the west of Macau not far from Château Cantemerle, has long been an insider’s wine. This was once the domaine of Vincent Mulliez, who was also associated with the renaissance of Château Pédesclaux and Château Lillian-Ladouys under the direction of Jacky Lorenzetti, but tragically Vincent died very prematurely, in 2010. Today his widow Isabelle Mulliez runs the estate; she has over 15 hectares of Cabernet Sauvignon (51%), Merlot (28%) and Petit Verdot (21%) vines at her disposal, planted on a deep seam of gravel. This gravelly origin shows through in the quality of the wine, which is bottled after up to 16 months in oak, 40% of the barrels replaced each year. In the 2011 vintage there is genuine success here, and although not the finest wine I have ever tasted from this estate it is certainly the finest in this representative sample from the Cru Bourgeois official classification of the 2011 vintage.
On a similar level was Château Cambon la Pelouse, which I should perhaps not find surprising as this was one of the top-performing châteaux in the 2010 Cru Bourgeois tasting last year. Of note, this estate is also located in Macau, just around the corner from Château Belle-Vue and even closer to Château Cantemerle. This is a much larger estate, 70 hectares all told, managed by the Marie family, Annick, Jean-Pierre and their son Nicolas. The terroir is also gravelly, unsurprisingly, although Merlot (50%) is more favoured here, with Cabernet Sauvignon (46%) and Petit Verdot (4%) coming in second and third place. In the 2011 vintage the wine of this estate displays a dark, dense and concentrated seam of fruit coating a fine backbone of tannin.
