Bordeaux 2015 Primeurs: Château Léoville-Las-Cases
After tasting in Pauillac for most of the day I ventured down to St Julien, a lengthy two-minute drive across the border, to Château Léoville-Las-Cases. In previous years I have tasted in a little laboratory nestled within the cellars, but this year was different. Having brought the car to a halt in the courtyard overlooked by the buildings of both Château Léoville-Las-Cases and Château Léoville-Poyferré, I was informed that my tasting was to be held over the road, in the Léoville-Las-Cases tasting rooms.
I wasn’t sure if this was a promotion or a demotion in the visitor hierarchy (perhaps the former – I am not sure I could be demoted any further when it comes to writing on Bordeaux), not that this really matters. More importantly, the thought that the journey to the tasting room involved crossing the D2 that runs through the centre of St Julien did cross my mind. If my notes and scores aren’t sufficiently kind, should I be worried about this? If I am overly critical of the wines, I thought, might I become the unwitting victim of a tragic ‘accident’ as I crossed the road, a hapless foreign visitor mown down by an unidentified black saloon car?
Clearly my imagination was getting the better of me. Nevertheless my pace across the road was quick, and a very short while afterwards I was sitting in front of the Delon line-up in 2015 in the Salle Cabernet Franc (did they know I was coming?). The big news here in 2015 is that there is a new wine, a second wine for Clos du Marquis named La Petite Marquise de Clos du Marquis, not the most catchy of names but at least there is no doubt about its origins. This wine takes fruit from the young vines, accounting for about 15% of the crop, in the Clos du Marquis vineyards. This wine would previously have sold off, but it is now considered of sufficient quality to create this new second label.
