2001 Château Sociando-Mallet Cuvée Jean Gautreau

I’m gonna go out on a limb with a couple of accolades:

  1. Best Sociando that I have ever had.

  2. Slays Mouton and Latour in this 2001 vintage.

I’ve thought for some time that the 2001 vintage of Sociando was something special. I’ve wondered if, and thought that, it might be the best vintage since 1982. The base cuvee, that is. And trying this special Jean Gautreau cuvee for the first time in this vintage, it’s the best Sociando that I have had. And I have easily had over 100 bottles of this fabulous Chateau. Have well over 100 bottles on hand, this is a Chateau that I back with my wallet, it fires on so many cylinders in almost all vintages.

I’ve had Latour twice and Mouton once in this vintage this past year. Solid, excellent stuff. This Sociando is exceptional. Better. Exceptional within a few minutes of pouring and building into wonderful strength. Not fully mature yet but definitely quite open for business. It has that youthful exuberance with the budding growth of maturity, like going through puberty. Pheromones expressing themselves with reckless abandon.

Pungent wet earth and tilled solid on the nose. Dark fruits, some licorice notes, gamy ripe fruits, billowing from the glass. the palate is large-scaled, textured, layered, with a broad range of black and plummy fruits, lifted with some citrusy red fruits and acid. Leather, sweat and tobacco. Grilled game meats seared rare. Some wood spice notes but the new oak is integrated. The sweet and saline notes, like charcoal grilled meats, almost too rich but engaging you to drink more, eat more. Paired with a grilled ribeye, and I am in seventh heaven. A really rounded, big wine. A steak wine with details. Tannins resolving. Close to full maturity. But the wow factor is the intensity of the fruit attack on the palate. It saturates the palate, caresses the tongue, and lingers with a very long finish that is chewy and tart at the same time.

Exceptional. First growth quality.

(96 pts.)

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FINE, I bought some. UGH.

Timely note! Just had a few delivered thanks.

Had a 2001 SM (regular stuff, not the Jean Gautreau) and it was really, really great. Would love to try this one sometime, you’re an excellent SM salesman.

Yeah, but that damn green pepper!

None.

Grab some 2000 for that. An oddly lean, pyrazine-ridden wine from a solar vintage.

Ignorance is bliss. I didn’t know that Cuvee Jean Gautreau existed. Damn you and thanks. I just bought some from Wine Ex.

Me too, I picked up 3 bottles

Looks like you guys bought it all…

Has anyone seen the 2010, '15, and '16 stateside yet?

Thanks for the enthusiastic note, Robert! Fortunately, 2001 is an underrated vintage and prices for red Bordeaux remain reasonable. :slight_smile:

Cheers Robert, not for the first time, I quite agree. It’s a great wine - my favourite SM too and yes, although I have less experience of 1st growths than you, I thought it was that level of quality when I tried it last year. The normal 01 is a wonderful wine, but this is something else entirely. Value is always relative, but for the quality you’re getting, this is incredible value. It’s a great wine to buy because it’s already very enjoyable, but it’ll probably improve further, so an obvious winner. I’d like to try this sometime with a more expensive 01 out of curiosity, but I think I know which would taste better.

Excellent note, Robert, as always! Your verbiage brought me back to the 2000 JG, which I consumed a few months back and described here nowhere near as eloquently.

I missed this last night as I was out with another 2001 – Leoville Barton – which was not too shabby either, though undoubtedly not in the same league as JG.

Now if only we could find some of it…

This is one of the more ripe - and I do not say that in the prerogative sense - 2001 vintage Bordeaux that I have had. It feels more like a 2000 vintage. So funny considering how lean and mean (and often green) the normal 2000 Sociando is.

Really disappointed in Winex here - Robert alerted me to this wine prior to posting here, I went to grab some and noticed they hadn’t applied my credit for a missing shipment last month, so I had to leave a voicemail. Now, they are gone.

Thanks Robert
2001 SM is delicious. The JG even more I am sure
How is the 2000 JG in comparison to the green SM?

I found 2000 SM and JG to be quite different animals. Or, put better, 00JG=00SM^2.

That said, I really liked SM 2000.

Alfert can fricken’ move the needle! Not sure how many bottles WineX had, but they sold out pretty quickly after his post [worship.gif]

I think they had two left. I’m a market-mover baby!

[snort.gif] [snort.gif]



After I took my lord’s cut, of course.

[worship.gif] I was just going to post here that you are a market mover, and saw I am late to report the breaking news.

I tried to buy some last PM at winex and had a password problem. I tried to grab them today and all gone. Fu has nothing on your skills.



Cheers,