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Commanderie

June 16, 2022

Bordeaux 2021 Vintage Tasting, by the Commanderie de Bordeaux in Bristol

The Tasting Room, 22 Clifton, Bristol
Thursday 9th June 2022

Report from Sue Darwall Smith, Maître, La Commanderie de Bordeaux in Bristol

Bristol Commandeurs, including four wine professionals, enjoyed an extremely successful Tasting of the Bordeaux 2021 Vintage on 9 June organised in Bristol by our Cellar Master, Commandeur Charles Lucas in his new tasting room at 22 Clifton, an ideal venue for this occasion.

It was a wonderful evening, learning about this interesting vintage, tasting some lovely wines while enjoying the company of good friends. It was great fun and there was a lively atmosphere throughout the evening.

We were extremely fortunate to receive a superb selection of samples from chateaux on the left and right bank. This enabled us to experience the 2021 vintage in detail and compare Bordeaux wines from different areas.

We were greatly assisted by the excellent webinar conducted by Sabine Silvestrini, with Brigitte Destouet from Château Guibot La Fourvielle on the right bank and Dominique Befve from Château Lascombes on the left bank. Their interesting presentation brought alive all aspects of the vintage, including the challenges involved with adverse weather conditions, particularly frost early in the year. It was fascinating to hear from them about the difference between the 2020 and 2021 vintage.

We appreciated their passion for the wines and their light-hearted sense of humour. Their discussion gave us a clear picture of the commitment, energy and precision required to make wine in a challenging year such as this.

2021 is said to be a very good year for white wines and certainly those we tasted were fresh, fruity and well balanced. Clos Floridène was particularly delicious.

We noted Brigitte’s comment in relation to her wine, Château Guibot. She described it as less powerful than 2020 but nevertheless delicate, elegant with plenty of fruit and well-balanced tannins. Several of the wines we tasted fitted her description.

There were wines to enjoy immediately but also, savour in years to come. Generally, the wines showed a good balance of freshness with acidity. Ripe fruit flavours developed in the mouth.

It was interesting to compare wines that were powerful, exciting and easy to drink now such as Château Lascombes, with others that were more delicate at this stage but were likely to be outstanding with time, particularly the superb Branaire Ducru.

The two Sauternes wines, Raymond Lafon and Rayne Vigneau were a special treat at the end of the evening, both glorious, elegant wines.

I include a few comments from our Commandeurs:

An interesting vintage and one which will bear much scrutiny and tasting over time.

I enjoyed the challenge of assessing what the wines would be like in 10 years time and reaching the promised land of the last few reds and the Sauternes.

And from our Commandeur, Master of Wine:

Overall, I felt it was an accurate representation of the vintage. In general terms the reds are quite light and accessible. The most successful are fresh and elegant but the less successful tend towards green flavours, under-ripeness and coarse tannins.

 Certainly, the Branaire Ducru was the highlight of the reds, just very finely proportioned and bright. There should be plenty of interest in the dry whites, especially when some of the less well known wines are available in bottle and the grander examples should prove to be benchmarks. The sweet wines are occasionally brilliant, it’s just a shame production was so tiny.”

It is clearly an interesting vintage with many more discoveries to be made.

Bristol Commanderie would like to thank Grand Maître Hubert de Boüard for proposing the presentation and the chateaux for their immense kindness and generosity in giving a splendid selection of wines for us to sample at our tasting. We also send our thanks, as always, to Caroline Delaroche and Anne-Marie Shepherd-Capdemourlin for their help in arranging this tasting.

Now that we have tasted the 2021 vintage, we are even more excited about our forthcoming Commanderie trip to Bordeaux in September!

Bordeaux toujours Bordeaux!

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