Bordeaux 2013 at Two Years: Other Appellations
At first glance this is a rather rag-tag selection of wines, but for the large part they originate from the minor right-bank appellations. Starting with Castillon, I progress through the St Emilion satellites to Lalande-de-Pomerol, before finishing up with a number of wines bearing the generic Bordeaux Rouge and Bordeaux Blanc appellations. These too almost all have a right-bank origin, the reds coming from the outskirts of Fronsac, the whites in some cases the same, or from the limestone slopes of St Emilion. It is only the presence of Aile d’Argent, the white wine made by Philippe Dhalluin at Château Mouton-Rothschild, that spoils the right-bank monopoly.
Despite this, this is not a selection of wines to ignore, because here we have some of the more convincing wines of this entire report. Simply because, as I have already noted in my earlier reports, the white wines of 2013 are so much more appealing than the reds.
A number of the wines were tasted with Denis Durantou at Château L’Église-Clinet, and they show what can be achieved on so-called ‘lesser’ terroirs by a vigneron with real dedication. The wines, here from Castillon and Lalande-de-Pomerol (his other wines pop up in my St Emilion and Pomerol reports of course), are also fascinating to taste side-by-side. All are made by the same hand, using the same philosophies, and what comes through in the glass reflects in a larger part than might usually be considered the terroir. My preference was for Château Les Cruzelles, where the aromatics were heavily defined by the Cabernet Franc, despite being just 10% of the blend. Similarly enticing was the G Acte 5 from the Guinaudeau family of Château Lafleur, which showed pretty, plum-skin aromatics. Neither are wines of great beauty, it simply isn’t that sort of vintage, but these are wines that could hold their own when tasted against others from much grander terroirs in this vintage I think, and the people who made them should be proud of that.
