Bordeaux 2014 Primeurs: Château Cos d’Estournel
I turned up early for my appointment at Château Cos d’Estournel, almost rudely early in fact, but it is better to be fifty minutes early than fifty minutes late I suppose. I kicked off tasting with Dominique Arangoïts (pictured), the technical director, before Aymeric “they named the estuary after me” de Gironde, the managing director who replaced Bruno Prats a few years ago, joined us. Aymeric has a good sense of humour, but there is no doubt that he is shooting for top quality wine, and this estate is lucky to have him. I tasted the full range here, which includes the Cos d’Estournel Blanc, which actually comes from vines up in the Médoc, and Goulée, the red Médoc, but I will deal with these in subsequent instalments. Here, it is just St Estèphe, so that means Pagodes de Cos and Château Cos d’Estournel.
Dominique and Aymeric (I confess I didn’t note who said exactly what, so I will stick with attributing the words here to them jointly) reported that the budbreak was early (nearly two weeks ahead of schedule) and homogenous, as already noted in my introduction. The flowering came in mid-June, and although it was cold, which meant flowering was a little slow, it too was also homogenous. No surprises then that by the end of June, with everything looking ship-shape in the vineyard, a week or two ahead of schedule, the like of which they hadn’t seen since 2005, Aymeric and team were feeling positive.
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