The annual “Ten Years On” blind tasting returned to its normal schedule after recent delays due to the pandemic. This year we looked at the 2012s, with 2018 Southwold fresh in our minds.
The annual “Ten Years On” blind tasting this year was delayed from February because of the pandemic but eventually took place at the beginning of October 2021 – appropriately exactly ten years after the harvest’s last Cabernet Sauvignon grapes were picked.
The “Southwold Group” has been conducting an annual blind tasting of Bordeaux wines at ten years of age for nearly 30 years. The first one that I attended was of the 1982 vintage, which took place in 1992 over two days in the offices of the original Lay and Wheeler wine merchants in Colchester. I recently learned that a junior member of the L&W team helped organise this tasting, and her name was Jo Purcell. Two years later she left Essex for the bright lights of Hong Kong when she started working for Farr Vintners and opened - all on her own - the first office in Asia of a London wine merchant. She has remained there ever since and Farr Vintners’ strong reputation in the HK wine market is very much down to Jo. She just let me know the news that Richard Wheeler sadly passed away this week.
The annual “Ten Years On” tasting has been a fixture in my diary for over a quarter of a century. The first of these marathon blind tastings that I attended was back in 1992 when we tried the still youthful 1982s. I remember being blown away by that vintage’s Mouton Rothschild – a wine that was brilliant even when young and has continued to deliver the goods ever since. The tastings were frequently held at The Mill – home of the great and much missed Bill Baker and sometimes at The White Horse at Chilgrove with our old friend, the incomparable Barry Phillips. More recently they have been hosted by Farr Vintners.
Since the early 1990’s I have been a member of the original “Ten Years On” t.asting group that was founded by the late, great Bill Baker using the reserve bottles from the original Southwold tastings. The first of these tastings that I attended was in 1992 when we looked back at the still youthful but already magnificent 1982’s We tasted further vintages at Barry Phillips’ “White Horse Inn at Chilgrove” and Bill’s “The Mill” at Hallatrow before settling on Farr Vintners as our home ground some years ago. As with the Southwold tasting, we are a group of wine writers – Jancis Robinson, Neal Martin, Steven Spurrier – and wine merchants (including the buyers of most of the major UK wine importers).
Every year, for over a quarter of a century now, a group of wine merchants and writers have got together to taste a Bordeaux vintage as it reached 10 years of age. When I joined the group in the early 1990’s the tastings were held at the home of the late Bill Baker, wine merchant, wine taster and gourmet extraordinaire. The tastings were also held sometimes at The White Horse Inn at Chilgrove where Barry Phillips had built up a legendary wine list. More recently, the tastings have taken place at Farr Vintners and this year was the first time in our wonderful new offices where we have a magnificent tasting room over-looking the River Thames.
Every year we hold a comprehensive tasting, here at Farr Vintners, of the most recent Bordeaux vintage to reach ten years of age. Having said that, we tasted the 2003s much earlier than normal as we felt that they were maturing so quickly. The report on that tasting can be found here. I suspect that we might give the backwards 2005s another year or two before we re-assess them, but there was no concern about tasting 2004 in 2014 as this is a vintage that has matured at a classic Bordeaux pace and, after 2 years in barrel and 8 years in bottle, the wines are now ready to drink.
One of my favourite tastings of the year is the annual "Ten Years On" review of the Bordeaux First Growths. This event has taken place every year since the early 1980's (at least) and used to be held in the Cotswolds home of the late Edmund Penning-Rowsell. His successor as Financial Times wine correspondent, Jancis Robinson, now hosts it at her home in North London in conjunction with Paulo Pong of Altaya Wines in Hong Kong. Best of all, as far as I’m concerned, is that I am invited to take part!
This time last year I reported on a blind tasting of the 2001 First Growths. Last week we repeated the exercise with the same 8 wines in the 2002 vintage.
