Bordeaux 2011 Primeurs: Médoc & Haut-Médoc
This year I headed out to Bordeaux a day earlier than I have done in previous years, in the hope that I could expand my coverage of some of the less exalted communes and appellations. It is increasingly a problem – for me, and perhaps for you – that wines I once bought and drank without consulting my financial advisor first are now priced well beyond my reach. As such there is a necessity to find wines which are still quintessentially Bordeaux, which clearly show a genetic link to the wines that I used to buy to accompany my seared ribeye or traditional roast beef (Pontet-Canet, Pichon-Baron, Léoville-Las-Cases, Ducru-Beaucaillou), but which are priced in a much less ambitious fashion. Finding exact replacements is clearly impossible, but we can at least look for wines with similar traits, true to the region and to the communes, wines that have freshness, substance and perhaps even some suggestion of elegance, despite their perhaps lowly – if I may use that term – origins. An obvious place to look, for those of us weaned onto the wines of the left bank rather than the right, are the Médoc and Haut-Médoc appellations – which are of course the focus of this instalment of my guide to Bordeaux 2011. So, was I successful?
I think the honest answer is ‘partially’. I made good use of my extra day by visiting a couple of very attractive négociant tastings, but the advantage was somewhat offset by a slightly earlier departure back to the UK on the Sunday, hence my hurried exit halfway through the UGC Margaux tasting, as described in my Margaux 2011 report. Nevertheless I have certainly tasted more widely this year, even if I did not achieve as much as I hoped. I tasted a much broader array of Sauternes than is usual, looking not only at exalted properties such as Coutet, Suduiraut and Rieussec, but also smaller estates that I don’t often taste, such as Cantegril, Liot and Haut-Bergeron. I looked at more estates in Pessac-Léognan than is usual, unfamiliar names such as Haut Nouchet, Chantegrive and Gazin Rocquencourt. I looked beyond the major appellations, taking in wines from Fronsac, Côtes de Castillon and even generic Bordeaux and – cutting to the chase – a few wines from the Médoc and Haut-Médoc appellations that I would normally overlook. So it was a successful trip. It’s just that, on reflection, I didn’t quite realise my ambition of providing you here with a ream of notes on good-value wines from several dozen unsung cru bourgeois estates.
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