In honor of March Madness, our good friend Jack and his lovely wife Pam put together a wonderful wine tasting paired with awesome tapas and great college basketball. The focus was only wines from the Bordeaux region of France including a sweet Sauternes to complete the night.
In the first round we hit some of the younger offerings:
2005 Ch. Du Glana - certainly this year’s Arizona, the youngest of the bracket, but held it’s own to make the final four. Nice ruby color with cherry, cedar/aok and pencil nose. Black cherry, violet and light spice on the palate with a medium to long finish — the crowd favorite! WS gave this a 90 and it’s terroir is same/similar as Ducru-Beaucaillou, so it’s gotta be good.
2003 Des Menuts- much lighter hue, but very cool herb (sage?) nose followed by a huge mouthfeel and violets. Finish was long and strong, down to get the friction on!
2001 Ch. Pipeau – Kind of tight on the nose but just a hint of cedar. Big fruit bomb and medium level of tannins and not much of a finish… not holding it’s own at all
1998 Ch. Clinet - Some cedar and mint followed by blueberries and very jammy. I liked the long finish. Looks like this one could continue to age some.
For the second round, we brought out some of our heavy hitters to see how they would match up:
2002 Ch. Smith Haut Lafitte – Very quiet and tight, not giving up much on the nose. Got some fruit and a little spice, but overall not doing very much.
1985 Ch. Toplong Mondot – Interesting brick, orange/red hue with barnyardy, earthy and vegetation on the nose: this tells you are in the old world, my friend. Nice fruit and good mouthfeel and my wife noted some pumpkin or allspice.
1985 Ch. Palmer - very light in color, which was unexpected. Again, some barnyard, forest floor and cigar box on the nose. Taste brought in some blackberry, medium level of spices and strawberry and very long finish allowing you to continue to enjoy this wonderful fine specimen. This went up against the Du Glana above in the finals of our bracket and won! This is a 3rd Growth classification and was tremendous. According to some literature, this could keep another 10 years.
1979 Ch. Margaux- meaty/gamey nose, still had tremendous tannin to produce nice mouthfeel and had the longest finish. Otherwise, it was not very exciting or noteworthy compared to the competitors. Maybe, the expectations we had set for it, lead the way for a huge let down or maybe this bottle had just peaked earlier. Who knows?
And for the finish:
2003 Ch. Suduiraut from Sauternes – I am not a fan of sweet wine so I had a hard time trying to evaluate. There was a lot of pineapple and the color was very golden.
