Bordeaux 2016 Cru Bourgeois: Médoc
In this final page of this report on the 2016 Cru Bourgeois wines I turn my attention to the northernmost reaches of the Médoc, where beds of gravel gradually give way to clay, sand and windswept scrub, and of course Cabernet Sauvignon also tends to yield to Merlot, which is happier ripening in these cooler soils.
As with the Médoc communes (and the Haut-Médoc to be fair, although I did not mention it), there are one or two notable absentees here, most obviously Château Potensac, Jean-Hubert Delon and his team having seemingly given up on the Cru Bourgeois system back in 2003. Another very strong wine from the Médoc is Goulée, made by the team at Château Cos d’Estournel, and it seems highly unlikely this wine will ever make an appearance here. Nevertheless, the Médoc category is rich with old stalwarts, names familiar to anyone who has ever sought out an affordable bottle of Bordeaux for drinking, and correspondingly there are some appealing wines in this 2016 line-up.
Not for the first time one of the top-ranking wines came from the stable of Jean Guyon, who owns a number of properties scattered about the tiny hamlet of By, which lies well up on the Médoc peninsula, including Château Rollan de By (pictured). The 2016 Château Rollan de By was one of my favourite wines here, along with the 2016 Château Loudenne, a well-known estate situated on the very edge of the Gironde and as famed for its pink château as it is for its wines. The 2016 Château Les Ormes Sorbet and the 2016 Château Ramafort, the latter estate one that also came to my attention during the 2017 Bordeaux primeurs, showed well. The same can also be said of the 2016 Château La Cardonne, which as Cru Bourgeois savants will know is in the same ownership as Château Ramafort.
