A Visit to Denis Dubourdieu, 2015: Tasting with Denis
After chatting for a while with Denis, he pulled out a few wines for us to taste together, representing four of the five Dubourdieu domaines. We began with the red wines, before progressing on to dry and then sweet whites.
Red Wines
The first thing I noticed as Denis pulled the cork on the first wine was that it was sealed with a DIAM cork, closures which have an excellent reputation for being free of cork taint. Surprisingly, however, Denis confided that he uses DIAM only on the ‘lesser’ estates, and he uses standard corks for Clos Floridène and his two properties in Barsac (although he does use DIAM for all half bottles, regardless of the domaine of origin). This seems to be a commercially grounded decision based on costs and acceptability. For these grander estates, I think the price allows Denis to factor in a high-quality traditional cork in which cork taint is less of a concern to him, but for the more entry-level wines he opts for DIAM instead.
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