Nice to have a later start after getting to bed at 1am. For the Commanderie Dinner we had de Fieuzal 2000, Haut Marbuzet 2005, Giscours 2002, Kirwan 2002 and Doisy Vedrines 2003. My favourite of the clarets was the Haut Marbuzet 2005 as it had a bit more structure over the de Fieuzal.
We left at 8.15am, heading for St Julien. The plan was get to the UGC tasting at 9.30 at St Julien as I only got ½ way through yesterday for 20 minutes before heading to Leoville Barton for a 10am meeting but we got held up in traffic and had to go straight to Leoville Barton. We started with the Mauvesin Barton (Leoville Bartons new property) which showed much better than when I tasted it at the Vintex tasting on Sunday, which was charming with attractive cassis flavours before moving onto the Langoa and Leoville both of which were good.
From Leoville Barton we headed for Margaux and with 20 minutes to spare we popped into the Sauternes UGC tasting at Chateau Kirwan before swiftly heading to Chateau Margaux. 2 minutes late, we had to do a Starsky and Hutch arrival technique that took the staff on car parking by surprise. Margaux suffered from the hot weather at the end of June which resulted in the loss of 30-35%. The star of the tasting was the Pavillon Blanc but with only 1000 cases it is likely to be re-assuringly expensive.
From Margaux we popped next door to Palmer to taste the Alter Ego and Palmer which were both very good, however hail in June and high temperatures reduced to crop by almost half to 5000 cases (9000 cases in 2010). From Palmer we headed to the UGC Margaux tasting Marquis de Terme where we tasted 16 Margauxs before lunch. Rauzan Segla, Malescot and Giscours where all good. I was impressed by Kirwan (Big step up in quality) and also du Tertre.
After a 10 minute lunch we headed off to Lagrange to finish the UGC St Julien and St Estephe tasting and with 30 minutes to spare before our re-scheduled Ducru Beaucaillou tasting we popped up to Chateau de Camensac for the Medoc and Listrac tastings as I need to taste Cantemerle, La Tour Carnet and La Lagune as well as Beaumont, Malescasse and Greysac.
Arriving at Ducru Beaucaillou with 2 minutes to spare we where welcomed by the glamour girls. We started with the Lalande Borie, La Croix de Beaucaillou and the Ducru itself which was impressive.
From Ducru we headed to the Cru Bourgeois tasting at D'Arsac which was hard work. Tasting over 40 wines with a lot of disappointment. Many of the wines that showed good fruit unfortunately had dry tannins and often a slight burnt fruit character.
With over 400 wines tasted in 5 days I'm looking forward to a pint of cool, sophisticated, creamy Theakston's tomorrow night.
I will over the next week gather my thoughts and put my report together. It is thought that this campaign may kick off quite quickly and there will be many decisions to be made. In a vintage like this it has been extremely helpful to do the whole week of tastings, there are some good wines our there, some though have disappointed. Pricing will be key to the success however on the other hand we have some wines that are down on yields some by 20-30%, this will no doubt play some part in the pricing.
Jamie
