Bordeaux 2011 Primeurs: Primeur Picks
Every tasting episode is unique, and each experience can be shaped as much by the surroundings as it can by the wine itself. Some tasting rooms are bold and brash, seemingly channelling the confidence and showmanship of their managers or proprietors, while others are more serene. Each time I am admitted into the dimly-lit tasting arena (yes, I think ‘arena’ is a fairly apt choice of word) at Cos d’Estournel I get the feeling I have just stepped into the warped offspring of a seedy private members’ club and a Shanghai hotel lobby (I’ve never been to Shanghai, so put this analogy down to my vivid imagination), rather than a tasting room in a highly regarded Bordeaux deuxième cru classé. If I were forced to categorise it as above, ‘bold’ rather than ‘serene’ would be my choice. Of course, the environment – with its leather sofas, ebony furniture and stone elephants – serves only to continue the thread of exoticism that is woven through Cos d’Estournel’s history. And in truth I like it; it certainly makes a change from the norm.
Other tasting episodes are more haunting in their atmosphere, bringing an ethereal sense of almost spiritual well-being, of a harmony between you and the wine. Such feelings are usually engendered by the environment; the new cellars at Cheval Blanc, spacious and in possession of a cavernous echo, are in some respects cathedral-like. They instil a sense of wonder as much as of reverence, helped in this case by row-upon-row of custom-designed cement vats, pictured below (no jokes about their resemblance to the Moomins, please). In many cases though, such feelings are brought on by intimacy with a hallowed wine, a sense of privilege perhaps, often contrasted against surprisingly humble surroundings. One such moment came a couple of years ago at Le Pin, in the old cellars beneath the tumble-down house that once stood in place of the more modern building present today. The acoustics were admirable; Charles Metcalfe, as much a singer as he is a wine journalist, proved it with a brief rendition of Pie Jesu. For more than a fleeting moment I felt a sense of respect and humility that I would normally associate more with entering a church than a wine cellar.
