A Visit to Henri Bourgeois, 2016: Older Vintages
The division between younger vintages and older vintages is perhaps a rather arbitrary one. In this case, we ended our look at younger vintages with 2011, but then started our tasting of older vintages with 2010.
There was no step change in style, and it was only tasting the youthful 2010 Cuvée d’Antan, followed by the 2009 and 2008 vintage of the same, that I began to see the more evolved characteristics appearing. We then continued on, looking at a range of different vintages back to 1990, through a number of different cuvées. These were all oak-vinified wines as far back as 2002, but thereafter the wines we tasted were vinified entirely in stainless steel. I thought this would perhaps be where quality would fall off, as I originally approached the issue of aging Sauvignon Blanc with oak in mind, as per my Oaked Sauvignon Blanc tasting. The wines vinified in the ungiving environment of stainless steel, I thought, simply couldn’t age in the same manner.
How wrong I was. Of the three steel-vinified wines from the 20th century poured, two were simply magnificent.
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