by Hoke » Mon Mar 10, 2014 1:26 pm
I'm happy that this iteration of Kirwan is showing so well; and I sincerely hate to disagree with Tom because we've been enjoying an unparalleled string of agreements on so many topics...but Kirwan has always been one of the more frustrating and contrary of chateaux for me.
It's well situated, has some pedigree, but it has always seemed the guiding attitude was one of such conservative fear of doing anything that might in any way distinguish the wines as to avoid any particular character at all. I say this with reluctance, again, because I knew the (I assume now previous) management of the property and somewhere in my archives is a "deed of ownership" to a single vine gifted to me in gratitude (yes, a marketing ploy, but an effective one to a wine geek) and permission, should I visit the chateau, to partake of the symbolic production of that vine. (I don't know if it would still be honored, although I somehow think it probably would.)
My...problem...with Kirwan is that, with all the potential in the world, it often seems to slightly underperform in the best of vintages, with a quickly developing, never profound, and curiously short lifespan in the years it should seem to be the most vigorous.
It is unfair, perhaps, but I think not, to remember so vividly the 1982, a year with such excellence and harmony and substance, that when other chateaux were not yet beginning their stretch to glory, Kirwan was already a fading memory of fruit, a benighted little dusty wallflower, a pale rose in the bouquet, without tannin, mustering old glory in what was not, or should not have been an old wine, but seemed prematurely withered and fragile.
Thus, Kirwan has always been a relatively unimposing chateau, never quite working up to its potential, never quite achieving its possibilities, and always in that "serviceable" stratum of Bordeaux legend.
I am, of course, now somewhat out of the current loop of the classified chateaux, being less active in the trade and as a consequence of age and income more interested in the lesser properties (of which there is an abundance of joy these days---I don't think Bordeaux has ever been better at producing joyously drinkable and affordable wines than right now.) I hope Kirwan is part of that boom, but time and expendable income and the necessity of making choices probably keep me from being aware of it if it is.
Last edited by Hoke on Mon Mar 10, 2014 1:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
