O'Briens Wine Blog

Cheval Blanc

Our final day in Bordeaux started off with a pretty poor excuse for a croissant and a cup coffee more suited to a roadside service station – just the thing to bring us down to earth after the d’Yquem launch.

Fortunately things climbed rapidly upwards from here and an unscheduled visit to Cheval Blanc was next. Here we tasted a trio of stunning St-Émilion’s; La Tour de Pin, Petit Cheval and Cheval Blanc itself, the wines were sublime and Cheval Blanc is going to top a lot of lists for wine of the decade! Dense but sumptuous fruit, multilayered, complex and very silken in texture – amazing wine. 

It was then over to Château Beau-Séjour Bécot for the main body of St-Émilion Grand Cru Classés. Here there was a similarity to the Margaux tasting in that the high quality of the vintage was not totally harmonious. Some wines failed to achieve balance but once again the wines that did get it right were quite remarkable. Indeed they were so rich and ripe they seemed almost drinkable then and there!

At opposite ends of the spectrum Pavie-Macquin was luscious, opulent and packed with layer upon layer of ripe fruit whereas Figeac was serious, structured and intense. Choose wisely and St-Émilion will seriously reward in 2009, they will be amazingly open early on but no-one doubts that theses are wines with years of evolution ahead of them. 

  The Star Wines? Cheval Blanc, Petit Cheval, Pavie-Macquin, Figeac, Beau-Séjour Bécot, Troplong Mondot, Canon. 

Staying on the right bank it was Pomerol next and the core tasting was at a Château that unfortunately took the timely decision to treat some part of the tasting room with chemical cleaner in the recent past! So once you struggled past this heady, bleachy aroma quite a bit of concentration was needed to get at the wines. As a counterbalance many of these Pomerols were very open and aromatic. 

It is obvious that there are a few weaker links with the Right Bank Merlots but many Châteaux have produced stunning wines. At the top end of the scale La Conseillante stood out, a pillar of structure and reserved power, velvet texture but what richness, what concentration! This is a keeper that will evolve for decades.In its company and equally compelling was Chateau Clinet, pitch perfect Pomerol, very plush ripe fruit, a rounded feel but with great complexity in the everlasting finish. 

The danger area some producers fell into was over-extraction and heavy oak use – point chasing wines that rely more on texture than fruit purity. Having said that, I can see 2009 Pomerols being on many people’s wish lists for years to come. 

The Star Wines? La Conseillante, Clinet, Petit-Village, La Pointe, La Croix de Gay.

The ivy-clad Troplong Mondot

Finally we were able to wind-down with a light lunch at Troplong Mondot, typically St. Emilion in style with none of the Medoc’s formailty here, a very relaxed lunch. Seated at long benched tables with hearty pâtés, cold meats and salads alongside the family themselves. A  good lunch that showed off the superlative quality of Troplong itself in the guise of the ‘98 and ‘07 vintages, great wines but someway behind the level of their monumental ’09.

There was a warm postprandial feeling of job done (for now );300+ wines tasted, notes written and a plane to catch.

The En Primeur (early purchase) campaign begins now in earnest and anyone who has an interest in obtaining the wines mentioned or indeed any others En Primeur then please drop me an e-mail at dstewart@obrienswines.ie

 Wednesday morning started early (9am sharp!) with a broad tasting at the offices of blue chip Merchants Schröder & Schyler and led to several new listings two of which should hit the shops soon: Château Bernadotte 2002 and Château de Pasquet St. Emilion Grand Cru 2001

A quick dash over to Pessac-Leognan and we were once again tasting classed growth wines, this time in one of the finest settings in Bordeaux; the famed, ivy clad 18^th century Manor House of Château Smith Haut Lafitte.

Smith Haut Lafite (..and famous leaping lapin!)

The whites were in fine form, and promised to be approachable quite soon but there is a purity of fruit here and a level of acidity that heralds long ageing. Domaine de Chevalier is likely to be the white wine of the vintage but we were also very impressed by the sure to be more moderately priced Château La Louvière; a full palate with generous fruit, well-judged oak and a hint of sweet spice.

The reds were for the most part excellent, a few wines seemed to be just a little linear, but the star wines more than made up for these. These are wines that will hit their stride in 5 -7 years time. Chevalier again shone out in its sheer complexity and trademark elegance, followed by a dense blackcurranty, mineral driven Smith-Haut-Lafitte.

The Star Wines? Domaine de Chevalier (red & white), Smith Haut Lafitte (red & white), La Louvière (red & white), Larrivet-Haut-Brion(white), Latour-Martillac (red), Les Carmes Haut-Brion (red)

 Next stop St.Emilion, for a tasting of Right Bank, Merlot dominated wines from St.Emilion, Fronsac, Canon-Fronsac, Lalande de Pomerol and Côtes de Castillon. This marquee was mostly about dynamic young producers, lesser known appellations and up and coming Château. Many of these fringe estates have to try that little bit harder and very often make wines that punch well above their weight, outshining many a classified growth. We found some real gems in here. Look out for the wines of Canon-Fronsac in particular they have a velvety, truffley richness akin to top Pomerols and have clearly excelled in this warm vintage. Best of all they will not break the bank.

The Star Wines? Veyry, Joanin-Bécot, Haut-Ballet, de Gaby, Moulin Pey-Labrie,                                          Château Cassagne Haut-Canon (the last four are all Canon-Fronsacs) 

Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux

Final call of the day was to the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux for the launch of d’Yquem 2009. No other sweet wine in the world can match the reputation or ceremony surrounding the great Château d’Yquem and quality wise; well it was out of this world and quite impossible to spit out! It will no doubt be released at a very high price and be snapped up by investors and collectors.

The Bordeaux Châteaux and merchants are describing this as a “magical vintage”, “wines of a quality and richness never seen before” and last week wine buyers, merchants and critics from all round the world descended on Bordeaux to sample the wines from this much heralded vintage.

Kirwan's cellar

The O’Briens team arrived on Monday evening to be greeted by the 2009 Château Kirwan (Margaux). We were surrounded by a group who had obviously been sampling for most of the day; adorned with blackened teeth and stained grins that resembled the Joker from batman. Our first taste of 2009 was memorable, this Grand Cru Classé is on fire at the moment and in the commune Margaux is now firmly amongst the elite. An extremely impressive Kirwan and even in this very youngest of  guises there is tremendous opulence of fruit yet it remains seriously structured and built to last.

Châteaux Batailley

Next day brought us to Duhart-Milon, Mouton and Batailley and amongst throngs of gurgling, spitting, tasters we managed to make our way through most of the Grand Cru Classés of Pauillac, St. Julien and Saint-Estèphe. Each of these three famous communes demonstrated the immense potential of this vintage. The Pichons are superb with incredible density of rich cassis fruit and Lafite is a mass of power and black fruit but perhaps Mouton is the most open, fragrant and charming of all these great wines. We were left in high hopes for the rest of Bordeaux.

The Star Wines? Lafite, Mouton, Petit-Mouton, Pichon Baron, Pichon Lalande, Lynch- Bages, Léoville Barton, Léoville-Poyferré, Gruaud-Larose, Lafon-Rochet and the Cru Bourgeois of  Phélan Ségur & de Pez

 Next stop was Château Desmirail for the Margaux Cru Classés and here we clearly saw that this brilliant vintage was not completely uniform there were some unbalanced wines amongst some seriously good ones. As renowned Journalist and MW Jancis Robinson has pointed out “by no means all wines were a success, even if the best were probably the best I have ever tasted this young”. Here we re-tasted the Kirwan and used it as a benchmark, a benchmark that proved quite high for many of the Châteaux. Irregularities aside, the good wines have fantastic depth and richness of fruit and should prove to be some of the finest Margaux wines in decades.

 The Star Wines? Rauzan-Ségla, Kirwan, Brane-Cantenac, Lascombes, Dauzac

 The next tasting at Château de Camensac showed off the quality of rest of the Medoc; some great wines here with Chasse-Spleen taking top honours and huge improvements in many of the smaller Château. Everywhere there was a ripe fruitiness balanced by fine acidity and more often than not fine silky tannin.

 The Star Wines? La Lagune, Chasse-Spleen, Cantemerle, Clarke, Poujeaux

 One of the highlights of the day was a quick stop at Château Cambon La Pelouse to taste through a collective of modern, forward-looking Cru Bourgeois under the umbrella name Biturica. The rewards were truly surprising; some of these wines outclassed many more famous names we had tried earlier. Winemakers here got fruit-ripeness spot-on and there was intelligent use of oak. These are wines that will be approachable early but will still age and develop complexity over the next decade.

 The Star Wines? Cambon La Pelouse, Sénéjac, Gironville, Belle-Vue, Clément-Pichon.