Bordeaux 2015 Primeurs: Dreams, Sense & Reality
Having completed the write up of my region-by-region reports, and having written on the tightening up of primeur releases by some châteaux in Bordeaux, I come now to Primeur Picks. At last, the final page of this vintage report. I have presented a lot of information thus far, 48 pages (not including this final instalment) filled with 44,000 words of review and opinion, as well as 478 tasting notes. So if you need it, the detail is there, but I am aware with such a broad spread of information it gets to the point where you can’t see the wood for the trees. It can be beneficial, I think, to have some sort of summary, picking out some notable success. Here I provide just that, boiling down all my opinion to just a few important lists, picking out my favourite wines of the vintage.
Before coming to my favourite wines, however, a few words on the alternatives to buying en primeur. There are two ways in which to circumvent this questionable process, and these days I participate in both. The first is to buy in other regions. Although I am happy to recommend good value Bordeaux I find do not buy that much because I find the wines of Chinon, Bourgueil and St Nicolas de Bourgueil fill this particular gap in my cellar. For the same price as a decent Haut-Médoc you can buy a giant-killing Chinon with more personality and individuality. And second, there is always the ‘backfilling’ option, looking beyond these most recent releases to buy wines from older vintages, well on their way to maturity, and not uncommonly at a better price than more recently released wines, a true paradox! I have long paid lip-service to the concept of backfilling, but rarely committed to it because there are potential pitfalls, especially provenance, and the wines aren’t always as affordable as you might think. Even so, I will be looking around this year, with 2006 being a likely destination for me, and before long I will be publishing a report on 60+ wines from the 2006 vintage with some hidden gems of high quality.
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