Bordeaux 2013 Primeurs: Margaux
I know I am repeating myself with my opening gambit here, but I strongly advise anybody with an interest in the wines of Margaux to take a look at the 2010 vintage. In that particular year this appellation, a collection of very gentle and somewhat lean gravel mounds scattered across five communes which lie barely twenty kilometres north of Bordeaux itself, simply excelled. If I were looking to stock the cellar with wines from this commune, or indeed if I were just looking to buy some Bordeaux of any style for future drinking, 2010 Margaux would provide a happy hunting ground. Not only are the wines rich in flavour, promising a long life and no doubt some future complexity, with a large number of châteaux turning in good performances, from Desmirail to Dauzac, from Siran to Rauzan-Ségla, there surely has to be one or two well-priced wines hidden in there.
It is, I acknowledge, perhaps a little strange to open a report on 2013 Margaux with some words on how the appellation faired in 2010. Perhaps I am trying to curry favour with the proprietors in this venerable appellation, in view of the conclusions of this report. The appellation of Margaux has been, in recent years at least, one of the most unreliable. Vintages such as 2010, when the commune suddenly surprises us all with an outstanding performance, seem to come along very rarely. The last such vintage I am aware of was 1983, when the region escaped the rains that dogged some communes further north along the Médoc, and as a consequence of some fine weather turned out wines which – at some estates at least – out-performed the already impressive 1982s. There have been good wines in the intervening years, of course, such as in 1996, and some of the other obvious candidates, but there are no other recent vintages which make me think – “oh yes – that was a really great year for Margaux”.
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