The Union des Grands Crus Bordeaux tasting 2010...
Where to begin? First of all, let's realize what's happening here, the clash of traditions, the Bordelaise coming to pour their produce at the Hollywood and Highland center in LA. The immediate culture crunch seems so jarring. These guys have flown thousands of miles to run their produce past the Parkerized hoards. And then we swill it back and make stupid comments. And who are we to comment anyway?
BUT.
We are there to taste, and to evaluate; perhaps, if we will, with a little bit of humility and respect for the hard work, the difficulties, the variations of nature, and man's attempts to work within these conditions. I know, I know, I may be making too big a deal here, but this is delicate ground to tread- I remember, back on the little vineyard I used to work, (And by work, I mostly mean, the usually inside, pouring, and bottle popping variety, but in all fairness, I did spend an entire winter in the vines) And then, after a labor intensive, difficult year of growing, tending, pruning, nuturing, fertilizing, spraying, picking, handling, carrying, punching down, soaking, pressing, barreling, tanking, racking, pumping, fining, filtering, blending, bottling, boxing, and generally cradling, we'd come to know each of these wines as our sibling, every single one of them speaking to us in it's own special way, with it's own peculiar quirks.
And I remember wanting to leap the tasting bar and absolutely throttle anyone who'd quickly and casually dismiss one of our efforts.
So, it's with this spirit, that I want to be careful and respectful. In short, no, I did not particularly care for the 07 vintage, and I was largely dissappointed with many of it's efforts. Even many of my go-to, bell weather wines, really failed to come through. Why?
In short, I don't know. I don't have the experience, ability, or frankly, expertise, to really tell you. Maybe others will come along and speak to you of weather patterns and brix, ph levels and phenolics, I can't do that. What I can do, is make up a story, entirely invented, and apply it unabashedly to the invented reasoning for why I didn't care for the vintage...
In my story, it was an uneven year, with some rain, some sun, a whole lot of just can't figure it out, and then, just when you thought the corner would turn, nope. I did, of course actually check the weather reports on the vintage, and no, I wasn't too far off. It wasn't a "light" year, ala 1997, which frankly, didn't bother me, I thought there were, and still are, some very nice 97's. I'm not afraid of "light" wines. I don't need every wine to be a blockbuster, in fact, I'm tired of blockbusters. But that's where this year was weird, they "seemed" to be mid to full bodied, but somewhere in the middle, they just didn't balance out correctly.
My Notes: Generally angular and tart. Fruit may be there eventually, but it's almost as if it disappeared at the last moment. Kind of a head fake, and no delivery. However, there were some nice wines, certainly. Nothing wowing me, but some well done efforts. And windows getting opened when doors shut, The 2007 Bordeaux whites were AWESOME! Absolutely delicious, crisp, aromatic, really spectacular.
And the 07 Sauternes are really, really nice, especially the Climens which I went back to for 3rds! Possibly the wine of the night!
My favorites:
Rouge:
Chateau La Gaffeliere (Beautiful Nose)
Troplong Mondot
Kirwan
Rauzan Segla
Gruad Larose
Pichon Lalande
Lascombs
Blanc:
Smith Haut Lafite
Pape Clement
Sauternes:
Climens
By and large, I wasn't a fan of the reds but there were many nice ones, the whites were almost great across the board..
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