A de V drinking claret shocker! But seriously, I love claret, I just think it's poor value compared to Burgundy. G brought this back from his Rutland cellar on Monday, and it was a real treat. He bought it at auction and modestly informs me that it didn't cost the three figures it probably would do retail. Lovely, smooth, mature claret - went down an absolute treat with the roast beef. I'm trying to pay attention more to the claret I do drink. Chateau Leoville-Barton is a St Julien, and is a deuxieme cru i.e. in the second tier of the 1855 classification of the wines from the Medoc. This wine was from the 1978 vintage which is not especially well-regarded but is quite old-school = drinking nicely at 32 years.
In other news, I came across this article in the Grauniad today about the 2009 claret vintage and whether the people tasting it have any idea what they're talking about. I don't suffer from the problem of verbosity when it comes to tasting notes. Most of mine read along the lines of "Nice!" "Wow!" or "Ew!" and are smudged with purple goo. Have to agree that tasting cask samples is not as easy as everyone thinks - trying to predict what something will be like in ten years' time is tricky, hence my traditional "Tannic Monster!" tasting note when visiting Domaine Parent.
Interesting to note that the Gentiane won the poll. Who was the other Genepi-lover, I wonder, and had he/she actually tried the Genepi? Guess we shall never know... Need to think of another poll now!
No comments:
Post a Comment