Bordeaux 2011: Tasting in 2014
These notes on a dozen-or-so wines from 2011 Bordeaux come hot on the heels of my recent review of this recently bottled vintage. Well, I accept that is only true if we can agree (while keeping a straight face) an interval of ten months between my previously published notes, and those I present below, qualifies as ‘hot on the heels’.
Perhaps it doesn’t. Nevertheless, even though my trip to Bordeaux to review the 2011 vintage in bottle was published late last year, the memories of many of those bottles remain fresh in my mind, not only some of the high-quality right bank wines such as Château Lafleur that feel as though they come from a much more benevolent vintage, but also some of the left-bank wines, such as those from the Mouton stable, all made by Philippe Dhalluin, and Château Palmer, Château Montrose and Château Cos d’Estournel, all of which far exceeded my expectations for the vintage.
The 2011 Vintage
I most recently revisited the 2011 vintage not in Bordeaux but in the Loire Valley, in a blog post describing some off-the-cuff thoughts on 2011 Vouvray. Bordeaux suffered the same unusual weather that I described in that post; this was the topsy-turvy vintage, in which an unseasonably warm spring and equally unseasonably warm autumn flanked a rather cool and disappointing summer. As a consequence, although the season had started off in a rather precocious fashion, everything slowed down during summer, and only really got going again when warm weather returned in September.
