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Southwold 2010 Tasting

Thursday, 30th January 2014 by Stephen Browett

Every January since the early 1980s, a group of British wine buyers has escaped to Southwold in Suffolk to spend three days tasting through the most recently released Bordeaux vintage at The Swan Hotel. The 20 tasters include several Masters of Wine, the wine buyers for Britain's leading wine merchants and distinguished wine writers Jancis Robinson MW(jancisrobinson.com and the Financial Times ), Neal Martin (the Wine Advocate) and Steven Spurrier (Decanter Magazine). I joined the group over 20 years ago as the youngest member (at the time) but I'm now one of the "old boys".

The picturesque seaside village of Southwold in Suffolk

This year it was the turn of the much heralded 2010 vintage. These are wines that were rated extremely highly from the barrel, but this was our first chance to hold a comprehensive review of the vintage since then. As usual, the wines were served blind, in random order and in peer group flights of twelve. My son Ben was in charge of covering the wines in brown bags to disguise their identities and he decanted any wines that are in unusually shaped (eg Haut Brion) or heavy bottles.

The table is set

During the three days, we tasted over 300 wines which was quite a marathon. Many people think that I have a cushy job, but these wines are strongly tannic with powerful fruit and high acidity. We started at 9am each day and by Friday afternoon my teeth, gums and lips were starting to ache.  You will, no doubt, soon be able to read full tasting notes from the three wine writers who were present, so I will just write a quick summary here and highlight some of the most successful wines of the tasting.

Saint Emilion

2010 was an interesting year for the wines of Saint Emilion. Unlike the "deckchair vintage" of 2009 where the wines, to a certain extent, made themselves, one sensed more human intervention in 2010. Those producers who like to "soup up" their wines, by concentrating and extracting to the maximum, risked making wines that are a little out of balance in my opinion. In a vintage with high acidity and strong tannins, the risk of this was to produce wines that are too tough with more backbone than flesh. Some of these have rather bitter finishes and certainly lack charm and roundness. Wines such as Larcis Ducasse and Pavie seemed rather brutal. The winning wines (out of 50 tasted) of this appellation were these (no big surprises):

  • 1 - Ausone
  • 2 - Cheval Blanc
  • 3= Tertre Rôteboeuf
  • 3= Angelus

My personal favourite was the sensational Tertre Rôteboeuf which has an amazing nose of Asian spices, leather, earth, barbecued meat and vanilla. There is so much rich, ripe fruit here that you could drink it tonight or in 30 years. Drop dead gorgeous and far cheaper than the other three.

Pomerol

Overall the top Pomerols showed better than the top Saint Emilions. In fact, even the 10th placed Pomerol scored higher than the third placed St Emilion. As usual, there was a big difference between the greatest Chateaux whose vines are on the plateau and the lesser properties with vines down the slope towards Libourne. It is hard to produce a top three in this commune because a dozen wines averaged scores of over 17 out of 20. Pétrus, Le Pin, Lafleur, Vieux Château Certan, La Fleur Pétrus, Le Gay, La Conseillante, L'Evangile, L'Eglise Clinet, Clos L'Eglise, Gazin and Trotanoy. They are all superb.

Any of the above are highly recommended, they all have outstanding rich fruit with fine, well-balanced tannins. I doubt that there has ever been a greater vintage in Pomerol than 2010. If forced to choose just three, my highest scores were for these three with VCC a strong challenger :-

  • 1 - L'Eglise Clinet
  • 2 - Le Pin
  • 3 - Pétrus  
Two of the superstars of 2010

Pessac-Léognan

I always think of this appellation as producing wines that are a hypothetical blend of 50% Pomerol, 50% Pauillac. This seemed to be very much the case in 2010. The best wines here have the fabulous richness of the top Pomerols with the class, structure and breed of the Pauillacs and then a tarry, spicy Graves character on top of that. There was one absolute star here that actually won the entire tasting. That wine was La Mission Haut Brion. It really stunned everyone and it's very rare in a blind tasting for a wine to average over 19 points out of a maximum 20. La Mission 2010 is an absolutely massive liquorice-infused, black fruit bomb. The density is so great that the glass was stained by the wine even when empty. On the palate, it is absolutely glorious, opulent and super-ripe. Sweet and decadent yet structured too. Multi-dimensional. Truly amazing. This Château produced brilliant wines in 1982, 1961, 1959 and 1955. This, in time, will become every bit as good as those classics.  Stable-mate Haut Brion also performed extremely well, of course. Leaving those two aside, the group's top three were Smith Haut Lafitte, Domaine de Chevalier and Pape Clément. Domaine de Chevalier maintained its extraordinary record of being in the top two or three wines of the appellation every year since the mid 1990s. Great value too. My own top three were:

  • 1- Domaine de Chevalier
  • 2 - Pape Clément
  • 3 - Smith Haut Lafitte

Médoc/Haut Médoc

These wines can come from anywhere in the Médoc, starting from La Lagune in the South (below the village of Margaux) up to Sociando Mallet in the North (above Saint Estephe). The highest scoring wine amongst the tasters was Sociando Mallet with Cantemerle, Camensac and La Tour Carnet putting in decent performances. The prices of these wines remain fair and they offer good quality and value for money. My top three:

  • 1 - Sociando Mallet
  • 2 - Cantemerle
  • 3 - Camensac

Saint Estèphe

This is often somewhat of a two horse race and, guess what, Cos d'Estournel romped home with Montrose in second. But - only a short head behind Montrose, in the group scores, was a very impressive effort from Lafon Rochet. This Château is owned by the Tesseron family (of Pontet Canet fame) and the quality has improved enormously recently under Basile Tesseron. At a fraction of the price of its two rivals, this was a very impressive performance by Lafon Rochet. My top three Saint Estèphes of the vintage were:

  • 1 - Montrose
  • 2 - Cos d'Estournel
  • 3 - Lafon Rochet
Samples of 2010 Bordeaux

 Margaux

To be honest, the Margauxs were slightly disappointing. Many had only mid-weight fruit and the tannin and acidity were slightly overwhelming in many of the samples. I think that we should give them the benefit of the doubt as they were great from barrel and I suspect that we are tasting them at an awkward stage in their development. They certainly appear to me to be closing down and not expressing themselves well at this early stage in their lives. Needless to say, the highest-scoring wine of the appellation by a very comfortable margin (and the only outstanding wine) was Château Margaux itself (although it scored less than any of the other First Growths). In a not very close second place was Brane Cantenac which just pipped Palmer. My personal top three highest scoring wines were:

  • 1 - Margaux
  • 2 - Palmer
  • 3 - Rauzan Ségla

Saint Julien

The 2010 Saint Juliens really are fantastic wines!  There were some really outstanding performances here. Of the wines that are available at more moderate prices, I was very impressed by the classically proportioned Lagrange. With time this will develop into a great claret and it certainly has the potential to rival, or probably beat, the great wines produced here in 1990, 1996 and 2000. It outscored its near-neighbours Gloria, Gruaud Larose and Branaire Ducru, finishing with an average score of 00.03 less than Léoville Lascases! A genuine bargain if purchased at under the en primeur release price. The top three wines of the flight for the group were truly great wines that touch First Growth quality - Léoville Poyferré, Ducru Beaucaillou and Saint Pierre. My own highest scores went to:

  • 1 - Léoville Barton
  • 2 - Léoville Poyferré
  • 3= Ducru Beaucaillou
  • 3= Saint Pierre
Sebastian Payne MW and Barry Phillips

Pauillac

Normally you would expect the Pauillacs to be even better than the Saint Juliens and, of course, the First Growths were. I will come to them in a minute.  However, the other top Pauillacs ended up with ratings remarkably similar to those of their St Julien neighbours, but with one exception. There was one wine here that was head and shoulders above the others and, indeed, it was the only non-First Growth in the Médoc to average over 18 points. That wine was 2010 Pichon Baron. I remember tasting it en primeur with Christian Seely and being blown away. Well, it really has lived up to the promise that it showed in barrel. This is an absolutely awesome wine. First Growth quality without a shadow of a doubt. I remember asking Christian at the time if this wine could develop into something as good as the 1990 (one of my all-time favourite Bordeaux wines). "Oh, much better" he replied. I think that he's right. My top three:

  • 1 - Pichon Baron
  • 2 - Pontet Canet
  • 3 - Les Forts de Latour

As far as the three Pauillac First Growths are concerned,  the good news is that they are all absolutely outstanding and set to become legends that will be ready to drink in 15 years but will still be showing well in 50. For me, Latour was the best with Mouton a fraction behind and Lafite in third place. I actually rated Pichon Baron above Lafite but that is not an insult in any way. If you can afford them, these are three great wines that, in time, may rival or surpass the wines produced at these properties in 1982, 1961 and 1945.

Ben Browett inputs the scores before the identities of the wines are revealed

Conclusions

In conclusion, 2010 is a truly great, classically proportioned Bordeaux vintage that is probably the modern day equivalent of 1961. It is more of a  long-term "vin de garde" vintage than years such as 2009, 1982 and 1959. I would say that it resembles 2005 and 2000 but it is a good notch above them. My favourite communes in the vintage are Pauillac, Saint Julien, Pomerol and the best wines of Péssac-Leognan and Saint Estèphe. It is not as sexy and opulent as 2009 (the modern-day 1959 I believe) and I think that all these wines will have a closed-down dumb phase before they blossom again. The lesser growths and second labels (unlike their very attractive 2009 counterparts) are, for the most part, not going to give early-drinking pleasure and will need several years in bottle for the tannins to soften.

My Top Ten Bordeaux Wines of 2010

  • La Mission Haut Brion
  • Latour
  • Le Pin
  • Mouton Rothschild
  • Pichon Baron
  • Eglise Clinet
  • Petrus
  • Tertre Roteboeuf
  • Léoville Poyferre or Léoville Barton (tie)

 

My Top Ten for Value

  • Lagrange
  • Lafon Rochet
  • Cantemerle
  • Sociando Mallet
  • Domaine de Chevalier
  • Gazin
  • Roc de Cambes
  • Rouget
  • Gloria
  • Dame de Montrose

 

Read Jancis Robinson's take on the tasting here

Tagged with: Bordeaux 2010 | Southwold
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