Bordeaux 2012 Primeurs: Pessac-Léognan
Flying solo for the Bordeaux primeurs means you can set your own timetable, giving me a freedom I rather enjoyed during this year’s tastings. A freedom to arrange an 8am appointment at Château La Mission Haut-Brion, for example, in order to taste through the Haut-Brion/Clarence Dillon (call it what you will) portfolio. At the time of making the appointment it seemed like a good idea; you know the saying about the early bird and the worm. With the first visit done, I could then move onto the syndicat tasting at Château Olivier, taking in as much of the rest of the appellation as I could, before heading over to Château Haut-Bailly before lunch, leaving time in the afternoon for me to head down to Sauternes and Barsac. When the day came, though, getting up at 5:30am so I could spend more than an hour and a half driving there in the rain, under dark skies for at least the first hour, suddenly didn’t seem so much fun. Happily, a fifteen-minute catnap in the car before my appointment soon rejuvenated my brain, and hopefully my palate.
Pessac-Léognan is a very individual appellation, sometimes overlooked in the story of any one particular Bordeaux vintage. After the tastings of the 1998 vintage, for example, it was universally acclaimed as a year for the appellations of the right bank, and this is still the prevailing image of the vintage today. This is despite the fact that the wines of Pessac-Léognan in 1998 are, in many cases, exceptional. The quality of wines in the 2012 vintage is I suspect nothing like that in 1998 (I always hesitate to make comparisons with another vintage unless I tasted it at the same stage – and I certainly wasn’t tasting the primeurs in 1998); quality in 2012 in Pessac-Léognan is good, but not exceptional.. Nevertheless it is still a vintage in which, again, the region risks being overlooked, the relative success of the wines overshadowed by those on the right bank, Pomerol in particular.
