Today was the start of the annual pilgrimage to Bordeaux for the Farr Vintners Sales and Purchasing team. Eleven of us assembled at Gatwick Airport for our flight to Merignac Airport. First stop was Chateau Rauzan Segla where John Kolasa and his team had assembled a huge line-up of samples from across the Bordeaux region for us to taste. There must have been well over 200 samples so it was a great chance for us to get familiar with the vintage.
In at the deep end with over 200 samples to taste
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What became apparent very early on was that this is no easy vintage. There is clearly no obvious vintage characteristic that dominates the wines. Far from it. If 2009 was the “deckchair vintage” when the vineyard managers and wine-makers simply had to pick perfect fruit and turn it into wine, this is very much a vintage where human intervention is of paramount importance.
Henry, Ed and Nick get stuck in
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It was obviously a challenging summer with difficult flowering, a cool, yet dry, summer and a long harvest season. Early impressions were that the predominantly Cabernet Sauvignon-based wines of the Northern Medoc were struggling with ripeness whereas the Merlot-based wines of the Right Bank seem to have more richness of fruit. Even so, we found huge variation between each Chateau and this is clearly going to be a vintage where there is no simple rule of thumb. Each wine tasted today will probably be tasted 2 or 3 times again in the next few days so we’ll reserve judgement until we have tasted them all again.
Stephen talks to John Kolasa...
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Our tasting at Rauzan was followed by a trip to Lynch Bages where we tasted a fine, polished Villa Bel-Air from the Graves, a very good Ormes de Pez from St Estephe (no doubt thanks to an almost 50:50 split between Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot) and a really excellent Lynch Bages.
...and to Jean-Charles Cazes
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Jean-Charles Cazes told us that 2012 had produced the lowest yield here since 1991 and a wine with the highest percentage of Merlot ever. Nevertheless, at 71% Cabernet Sauvignon this is a classic Lynch Bages that is comparable to the 2001, 2004, 2006 and 2008 here. It’s full bodied and full of fruit yet could be ready to drink in 5-6 years.
Tomorrow morning we start at Calon Segur and work our way down the the Medoc from St Estephe to Margaux....
