Bordeaux 2011 Primeurs: St Estèphe Tasting Notes
Summing up, in St Estèphe there are a number of exemplary wines, from estates which seem to have torn up the rule book and managed to fashion delicious wines in a vintage where the odds were stacked against them. Not only was the growing season tumultuous and back-to-front, many estates in this commune fired the starting gun on the harvest based not on a quality-orientated decision, but on a very simple need to pick before the fruit succumbed to rot on the vine. I wonder, particularly in the case of Cos d’Estournel, if the season hasn’t forced the team towards making a style that suits my palate a little better – one that is reined back, showing a little more humility – than the more powerful wines of recent vintages? I don’t have the answer to the question, but whatever the reason the wines from both Cos d’Estournel and Montrose are very good in this vintage. I have a very strong preference for Montrose though; it was without a doubt one of my favourite wines of the left bank, and a remarkable Montrose when viewed against other recent vintages, even from great years such as 2009 and 2010.
Otherwise, one or two estates had some difficulties in this vintage, Lafon-Rochet notably, and Haut-Beauséjour did not display any great excitement. Ormes de Pez was very satisfactory though, proving once again what benefits the presence of a knowledgeable and experienced winemaking team – Ormes de Pez is part of the Cazes portfolio of course, alongside Lynch-Bages – can bring. One estate that bucked this trend was Château de Pez which, despite being under the auspices of Sylvie Cazes and the Pichon-Lalande/Roederer team, was another wine which showed the challenging and spiky structure of the vintage. Cos Labory was a little shapeless and I suppose there is nothing unusual there, this estate crying out for revitalisation almost as much as the Quié properties of Croizet-Bages and Rauzan-Gassies.
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