Notes on a tasting of Bordeaux.
2015 Ch. Malartic Lagraviere blanc - nice way to start off a blind tasting. Typical white Bordeaux nose (how do they manage to be the only place that doesn’t show outgoing, as in grassy and obvious sauvignon blanc?) Some nice stone fruit on palate and a long crisp finish. Picked up some melon and grassy elements with air. Crisp medium length finish. Good wine.
1975 Ch. Leoville Barton – OK, this almost never happens, especially in a small group tasting (we are 5), but we had a duplication of wines. The first one was mine. I had been nervous about opening and decanting too far ahead of time, lest it open and then fade while waiting to be sampled. Nice orange/garnet colour with a slightly funky nose that changed to cedar, tobacco and spice over time. Smooth on palate with still detectable but far from excessive tannins still evident. It improved in the glass over an hour or so, picking up weight, transforming the nose as mentioned above and opening up on palate.
1975 Ch. Leoville Barton – second bottle was initially more forward, slightly darker and with a more forward nose of sweet ripish fruit. Smooth on palate with good fruit levels. Id did not change nearly as much as the other bottle did and at the end I preferred my bottle by a small margin – more interest.
1970 Ch. Gloria – another long lived wine. Garnet red and with some initial woodsy funk in the nose – almost Burgundian. Smooth and delicious in the mouth, and a clean fairly long finish.
2009 Ch. Batailley – dark, youthful wine with a cassis nose, sweet fruit on palate and fairly boisterous tannins. Needs time but drinks quite well now.
1999 Ch. Suduiraut – from full bottle. Medium amber with some very nice saffron and spice elements in the nose. Lots of botrytis and apricot fruit and a lengthy finish. Excellent showing and great length.
For a blind tasting of Bordeaux this line up was not too shabby at all.
