by Wine Owners
Posted on 2022-10-13
Today the wine part of the Wine Owners team, as opposed to the tech team who provide our best-in-class software solutions, tasted wines from one of the great sub-sections of the Union of Grand Crus; it is called the Bordeaux Grands Crus Classés - to avoid confusion!
Wines offered came from 2018-2021 vintages. What was abundantly clear was that 2019 has reconfirmed itself as the best of modern vintages. Also, 2018 is not for the faint hearted, especially Montrose, and also that second wines offer a lot of drinking pleasure at a diddly squat fraction of grand vin prices. La Dame de Montrose excelled, as did La Croix de Canon. The unpronounceable Chateau d’Aiguilhe from the Cotes de Castillon performed well, as usual (apart from the ’21), and at £150 per 12 in bond for the 2019 is remarkable value. Chateau Canon reinforced its ‘polished’ status and was probably the most consistent.
There were some volatile samples of ‘21s, which we imagine not to be representative.
To my mind, the question is not what to buy but when to buy, if you haven’t already - 2019 should be in everybody’s cellars.
Chateaux represented:
Smith Haut Lafitte
Gazin
Vignobles Comtes Von Niepperg - d’Aiguilhe, Clos de l’Oratoire, Canon La Gaffeliere, La Mondotte
Canon
Rauzan Segla
Branaire Ducru
Pontet Canet
Montrose
Guiraud
For enormous pleasure and for a twist on sweet wines, readers should definitely embrace the current trend of lighter wines from the region. Fresher and less sweet wines from Sauternes were particularly well represented by the second wines of Chateau Guiraud and these will make a very stylish aperitif. The dry whites of Smith Haut Lafitte were superb, and are so often overlooked for more obvious alternatives, Burgundy normally, as are most dry white Bordeaux wines - in the U.K. at least.
Miles Davis October 11th 2022
