This took place yesterday at the Royal Opera House and showcased the 2006 vintage. There were undoubtedly some great wines on show, but with so much to choose from there is a danger of rapidly anihilating your palate - a bit like wandering aimlessly around the British Museum (or HMV for that matter). The second issue with this tasting is that unless you are a professional taster - which I'm not - it is quite hard to project your ideas of a wine 10 or 20 years into the future, when it will be drinking at its best. I find this especially true of Cabernet-heavy left bank Bordeaux. All of which explains why I tried to be selective and slightly favoured the Merlot areas, especially Saint-Emilion and Pomerol.Some very brief notes on wines which stood out for me:
Chateau Canon-la-Gaffeliere (St-Emilion) - stood out as having more black fruit than the others I tasted and some spiciness
Chateau Clinet (Pomerol) - lovely roundness on the palate
Chateau Beaumont (Haut-Medoc) - spice and zing on the palate
Chateau Lascombes (Margaux) - seems to tick all the boxes, even at this stage in its development - my palate was getting numbed by this stage but it woke it up with lively red fruit
Chateau Pontet-Canet (Pauillac) - very fruit forward - you can taste a concentration of raspberries on the palate, but with big tannins too (62% Cab Sauv)
What better way to finish a tasting than with 15 top Sauternes/Barsac dessert wines. Two which I thought were fantastic were:
Chateau Climens - paler colour than the average and more lemon on the nose, but rich apricot on the palate, with loads of zing
Chateau Nairac - fairly similar to its rivals but seemed to have an added freshness/acidity which cut through the residual sugar
Update in November: I have just read Jancis Robinson's account of this tasting in the FT and she interestingly calls 2006 "the year of the sorting table", remarking that in "this disease-prone year", there was no hint of any rot. She notes that there were, however, traces of green, unripe fruit throughout the wines on show. Indeed, "it was hard to ignore the fact that the grapes were so much less ripe than in 2005 – particularly from the point of view of the austerity of the tannins". Read the Jancis Robinson article here.
