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Popped my first 2022 Tronquoy today. Deep dark purple-ruby color leading into a very nice nose of ripe blackberries, sticky raspberries, warm bread, cedar, and a pleasing herbal quality that vacillated between tobacco, mint, and green bell pepper. Full-bodied with grippy tannins and enough acidity to make me salivate. Good length with very pure fruit that wasn’t overly squished by tannin. Will return to this tomorrow with some richer food, but this was a promising start.
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really enjoy the château but in previous years it seems like it’s a long time to come around so sounds like that is drinking well at a younger age
2023 Haut-Bages Liberal. Very good. Drunk over two days. Sweet and creamy on the nose on day one, with currants and strawberries predominating. Open and relatively lush on the palate, with ripe tannins and good polish. Took on a slightly darker fruit profile on day two, with more pencil shavings and cedar. Good purity of fruit and excellent concentration. Check in again in 10 years?
I discussed HBL with a member of the Lurton family recently, and tasting this vintage is a good demonstration of the efforts to make the wines from this estate approachable in their youth.
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Is this property the same as Tronquoy-Lalande?
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Yes. They dropped the Lalande starting with the 2022 vintage.
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And went from a perfectly good old fashioned looking label to the embarrassing foil embossed one. Juice still kicking though.
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It was the 2019 vintage actually when they dropped -Lalande and changed the logo/packaging (wax)
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2001 Clos L’Eglise
Stopped into le vin coeur, a cute little French wine bar on Manhattans upper west side. We don’t typically drink much right bank but our first choice wasn’t available, so we decided to give this a try. Took a while to open up as you would expect, but when it did it was fairly decent. Still plenty of cherry and other fruit with nice tertiary notes of cigar, leather and smoke/ash. Not the most full bodied or rich Bordeaux, but certainly made me want to explore 2001 a bit more, which seems to be something of a underrated vintage
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That’s a wine of some gravitas for a wine bar tipple!
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It’s a decent spot- they have a fairly small cellar but stocked with good options, including a few GCs and first growths
2005 Chateau Malescot St. Exupery
I’ve been fortunate to have some incredible 05 Bordeaux over the last few years, and whilst this wasn’t perfect it certainly gave a fairly decent showing. It was 1 of 3 from auction; I had a really hard time with the cork (dry, brittle) and decanted for ~2hrs. The nose is fairly muted with maybe a little black fruit and cherry (30% Merlot) coming through. On the palette you get a little more black fruit - blackberry, plum, and some light tertiary notes. Tannins and acidity were still pretty pronounced for me but definitely softened with some time in the glass. It just lacked a little oomph…. a little unbalanced or perhaps not the best bottle. I’m not sure this is going to get much better with time. ~92 points
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Opened a 2004 Clerc Milon last night and it was just awesome after an hour in the decanter. Fully tertiary with tons of saddle leather, cigar box, ground espresso, and blackcurrant on the nose. Palate was lovely, beautifully textured, dried red and black fruits that were receding from the foreground but still beautifully integrated with the more evolved aspects of the wine. Not that this was some no-name Cru Bourgeois, but there’s something really rewarding about cracking a 5th growth from a non-celebrated year and having it fully deliver on all counts. Reminds me why I love Bordeaux.
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Don’t have a ton of data points but the three or four ‘04s I’ve tried recently have all been drinking pretty nicely.
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Gloria right in its drinking window, very nice. Cos was excellent, very drinkable, but could use some more time.
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1994 Leoville Barton - Very much still alive! Took a bit to open up but once it did, cool mint thing going on with the nose, lot of tertiary development behind a little bit of red fruit remaining. Not mindblowing, but a very fun, fully mature Bordeaux experience.
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Another good one last night: this bottle of 2012 Les Carmes Haut Brion was just banging. Tons of Pessac scorched earth, dark fruit, chewy leather. I think I fist-pumped when I took my first sip. Third bottle of this, all sourced as one-offs from WineBid, and this was easily the best one yet. I believe this was current winemaker Guillaume Pouthier’s first vintage at LCHB, but not sure if he was doing the whole-cluster thing for which this chateau has become so beloved. Maybe Jeff Leve knows? Anyway, for a not-so-great vintage, this was an absolute ass-kicker.
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2004 Sociando-Mallet
When it’s on it’s on, and while I have found the 2004 to have severe bottle variation this one was a good’n. Despite the much abused appearance of this bottle from WineBid the fill level was good and the cork was only slightly stained and came out with a corkscrew, no ah so needed.
On the nose, a humidor’s worth of cigar tobacco plus beef broth, spices, dirt, cocoa powder, jasmine florals, and red berry fruits. On the palate, quite youthful, medium bodied, quite fine textured but robust tannins, cocoa dusted berry fruit, moderate acidity, and incoming savory marmite/umami tertiary tones.
Excellent! Though I will disagree with @Julian_Marshall who has this neck and neck with the ‘01 - very good but a notch below, I’d say.
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Glad you had a good one and that you enjoyed it!
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