Bordeaux 2014 Primeurs: Château Margaux
Some tastings are intimate and personal, even at some very grand estates. At Château Lafleur, for example, I was a solitary visitor, tasting with Baptiste Guinaudeau and one of his employees. Château Cos d’Estournel was another quiet encounter with the wines, with just Aymeric de Gironde and Dominique Arangoïts, managing director and technical director respectively, keeping me company. Such is the fame of Château Margaux, however, that tasters turn up to check out the wine in droves, flocking to the estate in their silver hire cars.
Assembling in a makeshift marquee next to the orangery, the venue for the primeur tastings while the new cellars and wine library are still under construction here, tasters are divided up into language groups. English this way, French that way. Are there groups for Cantonese, Russian and other languages as well, I wonder? Perhaps. The promotional vintage booklets certainly come in these languages, and more. It is, I suppose, testament to the global reputation of this estate that it has to work in this fashion, catering for all-comers, pushing them through in an operation run with military efficiency.
Perhaps the biggest news to come out of Château Margaux this year has nothing at all to do with the 2014 vintage, but instead concerns the plans revealed by managing director Paul Pontallier to introduce a white wine on the same level as the grand vin, in other words a Château Margaux Blanc. Currently the estate produces a wine under the Pavillon Blanc du Château Margaux label, which automatically associates it in the minds of all with the second wine in red, Pavillon Rouge du Château Margaux. Naturally there is a desire to raise its image, and rebranding the wine in this manner would of course help. Before I get into any detail though, I must stop myself. I will return to discuss this development in more detail in a subsequent report, as for the moment we should stick with the red wines of the appellation in the 2014 vintage.
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