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April 2, 2010

Bordeaux 2009 day 7…the end in sight

So, the final push is on.

After a disastrous performance in the hotel inter merchant pool tournament last night it was actions stations to get packed, checked out and up to St-Emilion for a 9.15 appointment at Cheval-Blanc. Yet again some formula 1 inspired driving from Helen got us there with 10 minutes to spare.

There is major building work going on at the moment at Cheval-Blanc so the view was a little impaired by two enormous cranes towering over the tasting room and chateau. Thankfully there were no industrial accidents and the wines showed well. Cheval Blanc has recently purchased Château La Tour du Pin Figeac, the property sits right at the end of their drive. We tasted the 2009 at the Château and it was a sound effort.

From there, we managed, thanks to some speedy tasting, to squeeze in the UGC tastings at Pomerol and St-Emilion before arguably the most exciting appointment of the week, Pétrus. Before that though a word or two about the UGCs. Pomerol is small, around a dozen wines. Generally the standard here was high with plenty of wines showing ripe, juicy fruit allied to ripe but present tannins. Highlights included Beauregard, Conseillante and Clinet.

As is so often the case, St-Emilion was a much more mixed bag with wines swinging from the outrageously over-extracted to some that were delightfully balanced and full of fresh, focussed fruit. Figeac and Clos Fourtet have both made great wines this year.

I have never visited Pétrus before and, as properties go, it is far from glamorous. Very pleasant, but small and understated and definitely unassuming. The wine on the other hand was a different thing all together. Olivier Berrouet met us and talked us through the technical points of the wine. It was all picked in a single day, 1st October, and the wine then began the fermentation process. If you are looking for a huge, powerhouse wine with massive extract, searing tannins and lots of oak, then your time will be wasted here. Instead, what you have is the fruit of a quite exceptional piece of terroir handled, in a skillful and respectful manner by a winemaker at the very top of his game. The wine is concentrated, impeccably balanced and utterly seamless. Breathtaking.

Breathtaking, but for very different reasons, was our final visit of the trip to one of our key négociant houses on the outskirts of Bordeaux. This enormous warehouse is packed floor to ceiling with pallet after pallet of amazing wines. Just in the short walk to our meeting room I saw Latour 2005, Ausone 2000, magnums of 2005 Haut-Brion – truly incredible. This was an absolutely terrific opportunity to re-taste key wines we were undecided on, mop up anything that had eluded us and generally ensure that we had every base covered. It was an intense session where we must have tasted 40 or 50 wines, reds, whites and stickies.

And so to the airport and home……

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