Pessac-Léognan 2011
Updated: 2012-04-30 15:44:56
: , Home Vintages and Regions Bordeaux Bordeaux 2011 Pessac-Léognan Page 1 of 3 previous 1 2 3 next Bordeaux 2011 : Pessac-Léognan Bordeaux 2011 Bordeaux 2011 En primeur Pessac-Léognan St Estèphe Pauillac St Julien Margaux Médoc Haut-Médoc St Emilion Pomerol Sauternes Barsac Mopping Up Primeur Picks Every time I go to Bordeaux for the primeurs my programme of tasting changes . This year the Pessac-Léognan syndicat tasting came early , a heaving , sweaty affair doing nothing to suggest a lack of interest in the vintage but subsequent tastings of other communes were certainly more muted affairs this year hosted by Château de Fieuzal In fact , after Sunday's négociant tastings which should not be overlooked , as in fact I tasted an incredible number of wines there the commune of
After last month's Bollinger tasting, which touched - rather tangentially, admittedly - on one of Saumur's leading sparkling wine houses Langlois-Chateau, it perhaps seems only fair to turn the spotlight the other way for a short moment to one of its leading contenders, in this case Bouvet-Ladubay. Here I taste three of this house's latest releases featuring the 2008 and 2009 vintages, including one cuvée with celebrity credentials.
And from the broad complexity of St Emilion we now come to a commune both smaller and stylistically, to my mind, somewhat easier to define. And it seems in some way fitting that we come to it now, as we approach the end of my Bordeaux 2011 reports; because sometimes you do have to save the best for last.
: , , Home Vintages and Regions Bordeaux Bordeaux 2011 Médoc Haut-Médoc Page 1 of 2 previous 1 2 next Bordeaux 2011 : Médoc Haut-Médoc Bordeaux 2011 Bordeaux 2011 En primeur Pessac-Léognan St Estèphe Pauillac St Julien Margaux Médoc Haut-Médoc St Emilion Pomerol Sauternes Barsac Mopping Up Primeur Picks This year I headed out to Bordeaux a day earlier than I have done in previous years , in the hope that I could expand my coverage of some of the less exalted communes and appellations . It is increasingly a problem for me , and perhaps for you that wines I once bought and drank without consulting my financial advisor first are now priced well beyond my reach . As such there is a necessity to find wines which are still quintessentially Bordeaux , which clearly show a genetic link to the
Home Wine of the Week Royal Tokaji Wine Co . Tokaji Aszú 5 Putt . Birsalmás 1995 Royal Tokaji Wine Company Tokaji Aszú 5 Puttonyos Birsalmás 1995 I had considered opening something from Domaine Huet this weekend , following the surprise news last Friday although as I was so busy all day and all evening , and all night that I only picked it up Saturday morning that Noël Pinguet is to part company with the domaine and its main backer Anthony Hwang . Although I know many long-standing fans of Vouvray and the domaine in question have met and tasted with the late Gaston Huet , Noël's father-in-law , for me it is Noël Pinguet who has always been the face of this remarkable Vouvray domaine . His departure will leave behind a great void that will be difficult to . fill But let me stop myself right
Looking back to see when I last featured a wine from Marc Pesnot of Domaine de la Sénéchalière I discovered it was about this time last year, with his 2009 La Bohème. This was right in the midst of my 2010 Bordeaux reports, which seems somewhat fitting as tomorrow I kick off with my commentary on Bordeaux 2011. As I did with my write up of the 2010 vintage, I will try to provide some contrast each Monday with my Wine of the Week; organic Melon de Bourgogne which, as Marc describes it, is "vin naturel sans intervention vulgaire", seems as good a contrast as any.
, : Home Vintages and Regions Bordeaux Experimental Margaux , 2012 : Part 2 Experimental Margaux , 2012 : Part 2 Experimental Margaux Introduction , Experiment 1 Experiments 2-4, 2011 This update relates to experimental wines from Château Margaux , tasted in February 2012. For more on this estate , including all my relevant tasting notes , see my Château Margaux . profile In February 2012 I attended a tasting hosted by Paul Pontallier and Aurélien Valance , the technical director and commercial manager respectively of Château Margaux and Richard Bampfield who was there to represent co-host Yvon Mau The purpose of the event was to give the assembled audience a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to taste some of the wines made during a remarkable ten years of wine research at Château Margaux In
Home Producer Profiles Loire Profiles Domaine de l'Ecu Domaine de l'Ecu The process of discovery in the Loire will without doubt vary from one person to the next , but my personal wine history begins with Sancerre followed by the red wines of Saumur Chinon and Bourgueil and the other appellations of the central vineyards . Later came Vouvray and perhaps a rediscovery of Saumur , as I realised not only just how delicious these wines can be in warmer weather , but also that there are a few really top-drawer domaines turning out world class wines , such as Clos Rougeard and Château de Villeneuve Muscadet also came later , and for many years I held the mistaken view that this appellation provided only simple , painfully rustic wines which were of no structure or substance an appellation where
: , Home Vintages and Regions Bordeaux Bordeaux 2011 St Emilion Page 1 of 4 previous 1 2 3 4 next Bordeaux 2011 : St Emilion Bordeaux 2011 Bordeaux 2011 En primeur Pessac-Léognan St Estèphe Pauillac St Julien Margaux Médoc Haut-Médoc St Emilion Pomerol Sauternes Barsac Mopping Up Primeur Picks Knowing just where to start with St Emilion can be something of a challenge . The appellation itself is huge , with thousands of hectares eligible , dwarfing the classic left-bank communes . Hand-in-hand with this we have several distinct terroirs here , giving us a variety of styles of wine the largest and least exciting are the sandy soils these alone account for 3200 hectares whereas centrally we have the clay and limestone around St Emilion itself . And at the very far western end on the border
, Home Vintages and Regions Loire Loire Valley Sweet Wines , 2007 Vintage Loire Valley Sweet Wines , 2007 Vintage The Loire is a multifaceted wine region , and many of these facets are unique . There is nothing else in the little world of wine quite like troisième niveau Muscadet aged sur lie for three years or even longer . There is nothing else quite like Savennières Roches-aux-Moines , demi-sec Vouvray from a dedicated grower , or Chinon from a limestone terroir But if there is one of these facets that really stands out as unique and capable of producing truly world-beating wines it must surely be one of the classic sweet wine appellations . Quarts de Chaume and Bonnezeaux are perhaps the obvious choices , but do not ignore the newly christened , re-christened and then reborn Chaume the
Following on from my review of Pauillac 2011, we come to the other great commune of the left bank, St Julien. And there is no doubt in my mind that it is here, in St Julien, closely matched by Pauillac, that the true left-bank successes of this vintage are to be found.
: , Home Vintages and Regions Bordeaux Bordeaux 2011 Pauillac Page 1 of 3 previous 1 2 3 next Bordeaux 2011 : Pauillac Bordeaux 2011 Bordeaux 2011 En primeur Pessac-Léognan St Estèphe Pauillac St Julien Margaux Médoc Haut-Médoc St Emilion Pomerol Sauternes Barsac Mopping Up Primeur Picks It is about three years since I ditched my notebook and pen in favour of a laptop when making tasting notes . I found few activities to be as tedious as typing up handwritten notes just deciphering what I scribbled was a challenge , the process of typing up itself very time consuming , and by the time I finished I had no energy to write anything original . The effect of typing as I tasted was nothing short of . miraculous It was at Pichon-Lalande that the inevitable happened . I drew up a seat , opened the
: , Home Vintages and Regions Loire Loire 2011 Touraine Centre , January 2012 Loire 2011 : Touraine Centre Loire 2011 Vintage Review First Taste , 2012 Nantais Anjou Touraine Centre As always the focus at Charles Sydney's tasting leans slightly more towards those styles which drink earlier , and so just as Muscadet is dominant over Anjou , in terms of number of samples at least , so the wines of the central vineyards Sancerre , Pouilly-Fumé , Menetou-Salon and so on feature more heavily than those from Touraine . Nevertheless , the Touraines did seem exceptionally thin on the ground this time compared to last year although I suspect this feeling was in part due to the fact that two Touraine estates Charles Joguet and La Taille aux Loups were each showing their wines in a separate line up ,
This week I will be continuing my focus on 2011 Bordeaux. Carrying on from my 2011 Pessac-Léognan and 2011 St Estèphe reports posted last week, next up are Pauillac, St Julien and Margaux. I like to provide something as a complete contrast as my Wine of the Week, and with the Loire being my other passion that isn't always that difficult. A stalwart in this respect is Claude Courtois of La Cailloux de Paradis; he's given me plenty of interesting bottles to consider in the past, including his Romorantin and Racines cuvées. This week another of his better known wines, Quartz.
The light was beginning to fade as I headed north out of Sauternes; fortunately the weather was good and skies overhead clear, and so I made good progress north for my last appointment of the day. It's not until you get behind the wheel in Bordeaux that you really begin to appreciate just how vast a region this is; journeys between even just the best known communes - St Emilion, Sauternes, St Estèphe and so on - can involve several hours behind the wheel. Once you start adding in the more peripheral appellations, the more northern reaches of the Médoc, Sainte-Foy de Bordeaux and similar to the east or Blaye and Bourg on the right bank, journey times soon become intolerable.
My wines of the week have been really Loire-heavy recently, with wines from Muscadet, Savennières, Vouvray, Quarts de Chaume, Bourgueil and Sancerre. Nothing wrong with that of course, but this week it's certainly time for a break. And with my departure for the 2011 Bordeaux primeur tastings imminent, meaning a strong weighting towards Bordeaux in my updates from next week, I think that region should be avoided also. And so this week I'm looking further afield, to Rioja.
Hushed silence is not that uncommon when Bordeaux acolytes gather together around a few bottles of a first growth. Indeed, I sometimes feel I could hear a pin drop when tasting the very latest vintage at some estates, such is the reverence with which the wines are held. So imagine the level of anticipation that might surround a tasting of wines from one of these estates never even seen before and which will, in some cases perhaps, never be seen again.
My notes on Bordeaux 2011 come to an end this week; as far as my communal reports go I only have my 'mopping up' to do, a rather fractured report which serves as a home for my opinions on everything from Castillon and Fronsac down to Entre-Deux-Mers and generic Bordeaux. As a consequence I didn't think it would be overkill to stick with Bordeaux this week, with a look back one year to Bordeaux 2010, especially as it brings our focus to bear on one of the more niche aspects of Bordeaux; the dry whites.
Having some knowledge of the vintage, by which I really mean having some knowledge of the weather during the growing season, is key to understanding the wines. In case reading this statement induces a feeling of déjà vu, please rest easy; you have not fallen into a Matrix-style time slip. This is something you have read before; it was a statement I made in my introduction to Bordeaux 2011.
, Home Vintages and Regions Loire Loire Update : Château de Villeneuve Château de Villeneuve Update , 2012 Château de Villeneuve This update relates to wines tasted in February 2012 and January 2011. For more on this estate , including all my relevant tasting notes , see my Château de Villeneuve . profile It's been too long since I last reported on the wines of Jean-Pierre Chevallier and in fact it might be said that it is too long since I last reported on any wines at all from the Saumur and Saumur-Champigny appellations . This region of the Loire is too easy to overlook , its wines often good but rarely the best the white wines are often eclipsed by more focused and complex styles from Vouvray and these days Montlouis , the reds frequently paling into insignificance behind those from
. Saturday April 28th Log in Register Contact About Search and find good red . wine Visit Winesworld.net the wine . database Home Wine Food Travel Recipes Reviews Book Reviews Prod . we don’t like Restaurants Wine Reviews Ebooks Archives Contributors Hrayr Berberoglu Morten Pedersen Hotel Professionals We are looking for advertisers . Advertise with us and get a good . deal mail winesworld.com Professor Hrayr Berberoglu Professor B offers seminars Greater Toronto Area to companies and interested parties at their residence on any category of wine , chocolates , chocolates and wine , olive oils , vinegars and dressings , at a reasonable cost . Please , contact him at hberbero ryerson.ca List of Professor B`s . books Professor Berberoglu accepts wines , liquors , liqueurs , and beers for
. Saturday April 28th Log in Register Contact About Search and find good red . wine Visit Winesworld.net the wine . database Home Wine Food Travel Recipes Reviews Book Reviews Prod . we don’t like Restaurants Wine Reviews Ebooks Archives Contributors Hrayr Berberoglu Morten Pedersen Hotel Professionals We are looking for advertisers . Advertise with us and get a good . deal mail winesworld.com Professor Hrayr Berberoglu Professor B offers seminars Greater Toronto Area to companies and interested parties at their residence on any category of wine , chocolates , chocolates and wine , olive oils , vinegars and dressings , at a reasonable cost . Please , contact him at hberbero ryerson.ca List of Professor B`s . books Professor Berberoglu accepts wines , liquors , liqueurs , and beers for
. Friday April 27th Log in Register Contact About Search and find good red . wine Visit Winesworld.net the wine . database Home Wine Food Travel Recipes Reviews Book Reviews Prod . we don’t like Restaurants Wine Reviews Ebooks Archives Contributors Hrayr Berberoglu Morten Pedersen Hotel Professionals We are looking for advertisers . Advertise with us and get a good . deal mail winesworld.com Professor Hrayr Berberoglu Professor B offers seminars Greater Toronto Area to companies and interested parties at their residence on any category of wine , chocolates , chocolates and wine , olive oils , vinegars and dressings , at a reasonable cost . Please , contact him at hberbero ryerson.ca List of Professor B`s . books Professor Berberoglu accepts wines , liquors , liqueurs , and beers for
. Thursday April 26th Log in Register Contact About Search and find good red . wine Visit Winesworld.net the wine . database Home Wine Food Travel Recipes Reviews Book Reviews Prod . we don’t like Restaurants Wine Reviews Ebooks Archives Contributors Hrayr Berberoglu Morten Pedersen Hotel Professionals We are looking for advertisers . Advertise with us and get a good . deal mail winesworld.com Professor Hrayr Berberoglu Professor B offers seminars Greater Toronto Area to companies and interested parties at their residence on any category of wine , chocolates , chocolates and wine , olive oils , vinegars and dressings , at a reasonable cost . Please , contact him at hberbero ryerson.ca List of Professor B`s . books Professor Berberoglu accepts wines , liquors , liqueurs , and beers for
Small Scale Winemakers Symposium: May 5, 2012 in Cat Spring, Texas The Grape Growers Committee of Austin County will be sponsoring a Small Scale Wine Makers Symposium on Saturday, May 5, 2012, at the Cat Spring Agricultural Hall in Cat Spring, Texas. You will have the opportunity to hear from local wine makers as well [...]
Swirl, Sip and Savor Texas Wines with Texas Sommeliers Sunday 11 AM at the Austin Food & Wine Festival “The Gold Medal Wines Of Texas Are Upon You” 11:00 – 11:45am Austin Food and Wine Festival Multiple Exhibitors Auditorium Shores – Oak Tent Get in the know about the Lone Star State’s new grand vinos [...]
TXwine Twitter Tuesday Features the Wines of 4.0 Cellars, May 8, 2012! Denise Clarke (@DeniseFraser), Jeff Cope (@TXwineLover) and I (@VintageTexas) hope you can join us for the next TXwine Twitter Tuesday at 7 p.m. Central Time on Tuesday, May 8th. We will feature the wines of the new 4.0 (Four Point O) Cellars and [...]
Get Your Tickets: Gala Texas Food & Wine Pairing and Book Event Friday Night in Fredericksburg, Texas Texas Hill Country Wine and Music Festival Texas Wine Tasting and Food Pairing Evening with Book Signing Friday 4/27, 6:00-9:30pm BON APPETIT from the TEXAS HILL COUNTRY! Salute! Our incredible Friday Night prelude Event – “Texas Wine Tasting [...]
, Another Wine Blog Because Another Wine , Food , Beer and Travel Blog would have been way too ing long Skip to content Home Best of AWB Reviews Food Cooking Recipes Contact Us Contact AWB Contact Amy Contact Joe Media PR Inquiries Links About About This Site About Amy About Joe RSS Feed Twitter StumbleUpon FaceBook What I like to drink most is wine that belongs to others . Diogenes AWB Home » It’s Syrah , Dammit April 23, 2012 It’s Syrah , Dammit By Joe Power 1 Comment Tweet Share I try not to play favorites . When someone asks me what my favorite wine or grape is I usually babble some non-committal bullshit until I see their eyes glaze over and I know it is safe to change the subject . There are great wines to be had in all styles and made with all sorts of grapes . As someone with a
More Notes from the Road, Tuscany in Texas, and A Little Wisdom from Mark Twain This weekend’s road trip to Buffalo Gap finally came to an end with a long drive back to Houston through Fredericksburg. As I drove and reflected on experiences that I wanted to yet capture on this blog, I feared that [...]
Ahh! That’sa Nice. This is What The Buffalo Gap Wine & Food Summit is All About The morning started early under the indigo sky, over the red dirt and next to the lime green leaved mesquites. On my third trip here, I finally got it…don’t wear your good boots. The last two years it took [...]
The Road Leads to The Gap: 2012 Buffalo Gap Wine & Food Summit I left our casita just outside Fredericksburg, Texas, this evening after an afternoon gust of cool north wind arrived with only a spit or two of rain. The drive up through Mason and Brady was brightened with a flury of color: ribbons [...]
Eye Popping Wines & Stats for a Messina Hof Winery Twitter Tasting Yesterday at noon central time, Messina Hof Winery in Bryan Texas kicked off an International Twitter Tasting featuring wine tasters in Texas and point around the world as far away as Paris France. However, this wasn’t my first experience with the Grand Impresarios [...]
A True California Wine Country (High Country) Experience: Cannabis Cuvées Source: The Daily Beast…Apr 14, 2012 Wines fermented with weed were a novelty in the early 1980s, but now quite a few California winemakers are producing cannabis cuvées on the sly-with cabernet the variety of choice. Last year, at a Burgundy dinner in New York, [...]
: , Another Wine Blog Because Another Wine , Food , Beer and Travel Blog would have been way too ing long Skip to content Home Best of AWB Reviews Food Cooking Recipes Contact Us Contact AWB Contact Amy Contact Joe Media PR Inquiries Links About About This Site About Amy About Joe RSS Feed Twitter StumbleUpon FaceBook My only regret in life is that I did not drink more Champagne . John Maynard Keynes AWB Home » Wine : Myths and Mystery , a Top Ten List April 8, 2012 Wine : Myths and Mystery , a Top Ten List By Joe Power 2 Comments Tweet Share I s there any other popular beverage steeped in so much myth and mystery as wine Even Scotch would seem to be a distant second . There is no simpler alcoholic beverage to make if you break it down by basic process alone . Get yourself some grapes ,