Today we hit the Northern Medoc, meaning St. Estephe.
We visited the 3 big boys - Calon Segur, Montrose and then Cos d'Estournel for tasting and lunch with Jean-Guillaume Prats, the managing director.
Here are my notes from these 3 chateaux.
Calon Segur - This is an old world place, and I'm a fan of this style. It's classic - not modern - and it's like wine from the 80's & 90's, but cleaner and with a touch more power. This is a medium bodied vintage. 93-95 DS.
Montrose - You are going to need quite the patience for this wine. It's traditional cabernet to the max. High note berry restrained nose, super intense and mega tannic structure with good tannins. This is like the 1989 which turned out great. It may be better than the Parker favorite, 1990. 94-96 DS.
Cos d'Estournel -This place is gorgeous.
La Goulee - Their other property. Very nice. 91-93 DS.
Pagodes de Cos - This wine had a bright nose of berries - almost raspberry - and I was amazed at how open it is.
Cos - it is rocking. This estate has changed to modern wine, and it works in this vintage. It's sort of like Harlan estate meets Bordeaux. It has perfect balance and medium tannin. Super fruit, but not sweet. Creamy. It has some of the most pure fruit and delicious fruit of the vintage. 97-99+ DS.
I have a couple of other comments that I think you'll find interesting.
1) Have you noticed that there has been a string of good vintages in the last decade? Many agree that the hot weather & lack of rain recently associated with global warming is helping the ripeness of fruit in Bordeaux. Hey, I'm here now, and it's 78 degrees in early April. Now, have you noticed that there's been a more noticeable lack of bad vintages like there were in the 60's and 70's? What's up with that? Here is the two-part answer.
A) Reverse Osmosis - In the early 90's, a technological leap was taken with the introduction of reverse osmosis machines that filter the water out of wine. In vintages where there is extreme rain in the late season, the grapes swell with water and the vintage is ruined, but that's a thing of the past. Just run that juice through a RO machine, and the vintage is rescued. Maybe it's not a classic, but it's definitely not a write-off. Many might not even notice it, although experts can tell when one has been used, and sometimes the wines seem flat (it can also concentrate the negatives in the grapes if there are any). The RO machines of today have significantly decreased the amount of "throw away" vintages of days past.
B) Brute Force - 180 degrees off the tech solution is good ol' man power. Higher wine prices have encouraged the Bordelaise to spend mega man power on sorting out the bad fruit. Many hands on deck pick through the harvested fruit on electronic sorting tables (that do some of the work for you) to make sure that every grape is perfect. Goodbye to days of rotten fruit.
2) AP: AFTER PARKER
As I mentioned, I just ate lunch with Jean-Guillaume Prats at Cos, and he's a good guy. Some people resent him because he's direct and honest. It's the part I like best. We were discussing the wine market after Parker stops reviewing. What happens? He introduced an interesting idea to the conversation. Until Parker came along, the 1855 Classification was pretty strong. Parker blew it out of the water and could basically upgrade any wine he wanted at will. Prats suggested that when Parker is gone, upward mobility within the Bordeaux caste system will slow down significantly or even cease! I tend to agree. Yes, there are others who can change things like James Suckling at the top of the list, but AP, after Parker, the game will change.
And that's a wrap for today.