Bordeaux 2015 at Ten Years: Right Bank
Alice: “How long is forever?”
The White Rabbit: “Sometimes, just one second.”
– Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), Lewis Carroll
In this, the second of two sets of tasting notes on the wines of the 2015 Bordeaux vintage revisited at ten years of age, I focus on the right-bank appellations, mainly St Emilion and Pomerol, with a sweet conclusion from Sauternes and Barsac tagged on at the end.
As I hinted in my report on the wines of the left bank I have always found the right bank to be more impressive in this vintage. This is despite levels of alcohol which I know will be immediately off-putting to some Winedoctor readers. The levels declared make for fascinating if slightly macabre reading; you will see from my notes below that 14.5% is not at all uncommon on the right bank in this vintage, although it is far from the highest value. There are a surprising number of châteaux declaring 15% in 2015, as well as a couple of notable names coming in at 15.5%.
Of course for EU labelling the true alcohol level could lie within a 0.5% margin either side of the figure declared on the label, but my suspicion is that a property which declares 15.5% is doing so because the true figure is closer to 15.5% that it is to 15%; it may even be higher than 15.5%. A number is just a number though; acidity levels, for example, can have a huge effect on alcohol perception, and while I provide the information at the end of each tasting note I judge the wines based on how they taste. To be frank, some wines declaring 15% taste excellent. Some less so.
Even when their taste is appealing, though, I do have concerns about what bearing this high level of alcohol has on their aging abilities. Of note, the two wines declaring 15.5% already seem to have lost some of their early lustre, seen when they were tasted as primeur samples or after bottling, just eight or nine years ago. Are they heading downhill already?
Please log in to continue reading: