Oaked Sauvignon Blanc, 2015: Bordeaux, Tasting Notes
I haven’t discussed the wines from Bordeaux in as much detail as I have those from the Loire Valley, simply because I suspect most readers will already be familiar with the style, if not every individual wine. To my surprise I found some of the older vintages here seemed a little tired. The oldest wine was a 1999, from Domaine de Chevalier, which showed a very nutty, oxidative, aged style. Even somewhat younger wines, from 2006, seemed a little dry and dominated by their structure.
With the younger wines, things were much better. These tended to come from the 2009, 2010 and 2012 vintages, all good for white wines, although the older vintage of the three was perhaps a touch on the warm side, generating lower acidities, while 2010 and 2012 tend to have more tension. Overall the wines didn’t show the glorious vibrancy that the wines of the Loire exhibited, which is par for the course, the Pessac-Léognan and Graves style being less strident than that of Sancerre and the like. I can’t help feeling that this (in part at least) reflects terroir, as the largely sandy-gravelly vineyards on which these vineyards are planted do not imbue the wines with the same strident acidity that the limestones and flints of Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé engender. Coming to these wines after those from the Loire, I felt I had to be careful not to mark the wines down simply because of their inherently different structures.
Conclusions
There were perhaps forty tasters, which gives us potential for perhaps forty different conclusions. My thoughts, as the last taster exited and Richard and I began packing up, were these. First, oaked Sancerre really does need age; it is not a question of it tolerating time in the cellar, it positively demands it in order to show its best. Secondly, the wines age very well indeed; these are not minor wines, but vibrant, pure, concentrated wines of real interest. I have clearly under-rated the ability of oaked Sauvignon Blanc to perform, and will have to add a few bottles to my cellar in order to investigate this further. Thirdly, white Bordeaux, despite being the darling of the wine trade, doesn’t all follow the same curve as the Château Haut-Brion Blanc, and I wonder if some don’t drop off their perches long before we are expecting them to. (17/11/15)
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