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2007 Bordeaux - Results of the Southwold Tasting

Monday, 24th January 2011 by Stephen Browett

Every year the leading wine buyers of the UK wine trade get together and organise a comprehensive blind tasting of the most recently released Bordeaux vintage. The tasting takes place at The Crown Hotel at Southwold in Suffolk and has been a regular event now for nearly 30 years.

This year's Southwold Tasting focussed on 2007 Bordeaux. This is an attractive vintage that in the red wines will provide some delicious early drinking. It should not be seen as an "off" vintage but as an attractive year that will be very user friendly. It is certainly at a higher level than years such as 1994 and 1997 and in fact we would rate it as above 1999 and close to good years such as 2002 and 2004. For the white wines it is of course an outstanding vintage for both the dry wines and the sensational Sauternes.

As usual, the wines were tasted strictly blind in peer group flights. This year's winners were as follows:

Saint Emilion
Having come in behind Ausone in recent years, it was good to see Cheval Blanc voted top Saint Emilion just ahead of Troplong Mondot and Le Tertre Roteboeuf. There was a great performance from the much more modestly priced Pavie Macquin which was scored just behind the winners.

Pomerol
Well, no surprise here with Petrus coming out on top. It was followed by Le Pin, Evangile and L'Eglise Clinet.

Pessac-Leognan
No surprises here either with Haut Brion and La Mission the highest rated. However there was an impressive performance by the modestly priced de Fieuzal which just beat Smith Haut Lafitte and Domaine de Chevalier to third place.

Medoc
A big surprise here (one of very few in the tasting really) with the modestly priced Chateau Bernadotte winning this 12 wine flight. The favourite to win this race was the much more expensive La Lagune which finished in 2nd place

Margaux
Leaving aside Chateau Margaux the best performance here was from Brane Cantenac. Not normally a star performer in blind tastings it was good to see it doing so well here.

Saint Julien
This was a very competitive flight with less than a point separating the top ten wines. The winner was Ducru Beaucaillou with the 3 Léovilles - Lascases, Barton and Poyferré (in that order) in second, third and fourth. The tight scoring certainly suggests that you can't go wrong if you buy any St Julien in 2007.

Saint Estephe
Well, once again there was a victory here for Cos d'Estournel. This Chateau is clearly on top form and in fact it even out-scored three of the First Growths in 2007. Another great achievement by Jean-Guillaume Prats.

Pauillac
Leaving aside the First Growths, there was a surprise vicory in Pauillac for Chateau Batailley with Lynch Bages and Pichon Baron next. The overall winner of Pauillac, and indeed the entire tasting of red wines was Mouton Rothschild.

Dry White
Another predicatable victory here with Haut Brion Blanc coming in just ahead of Domaine de Chevalier Blanc

Sauternes/Barsac
Yet again the favourite was a clear winner here with Yquem storming to victory with an average score of 19 points (out of 20). Clearly the wine of the vintage in 2007. There were great performances also by the other big hitters Suduiraut and Climens (in second and third places). A special mention should go to Rayne Vigneau which was placed right up there with the big names and scored an impressive average of 17.04. On special offer from Farr Vintners at £160 per case for halves and bottles, this has to be the bargain of the vintage.

Tagged with: Bordeaux 2007 | Southwold
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