Bordeaux 2015 Arrivage Tasting

There is no doubt that the Bordeaux vintage 2015 truely deserve its high praise and high scores. I was impressed by the balance, structure and elegance by most of these wines on friday.

Note: we didn´t decant the wines, just pop&pour. And only 1 wine was really closed and needed more air presumably.


Ch. du Tertre blanc
Too opulent and perfumed in my view. Fair to say it´s quite difficult to impress me with a white wine besides Riesling and Burgundy.



Ch. Le Pape
BestBuy. Fresh and elegant with sublime tannins and a clear fruit. Around 22 Euro. 90/100



Ch. Malartic-Lagraviere
Fantastic perfume. It´s all about elegance on the palate and with a great length. 94/100




Ch. Domaine de Chevalier
Dark and mystic personality. Plum, spice and with a hint of 1001 night. Clearly more complex and sophisticated than the previous wine. Fascinating juice. Truely deserve the high praise from the wine critic. 96-97/100




Ch. Pape-Clement
totally closed




Ch. Labegorce
What a disappointment performance in comparison to the great 2014 vintage. One-dimensional and the fruit is clearly too heavy and too ostensible. In addition the tannins are too dry. 88/100




Ch. Giscours
Overall a quite indifferent presentation. I am puzzled.




Ch. Talbot
CLASSIC Bordeaux. The fruit is quite shy. Such precise&elegant on the palate. Fantastic structure and balance. Honestly I am quite surprised and puzzled about the low ratings of this wine by all the famous journalists. 94+/100




Ch. Beychevelle
Too pleasing and overall to sweet and round on the palate. Quite disappointing.




Ch. Gruaud-Larose
off-bottle




Ch. Leoville Barton
What a thrilling wine. Your palate will be wrapped in silk. Stunning depth and length. And fascinating how pleasantly relaxed this wine is. WOTN 98/100




Ch. Batailley
stinky. Too rural this wine. Cleary not my cup of Bordeaux.




Ch. D`Armailhac
The overall performance of this wine is too lumpen. Also too dry tannins in the finish. And where is the fruit?“ Such boring and one-dimensional.




Ch. Clerc-Milon
NO……not my cup of tea.




Ch. Phelan Segur
off-bottle




Ch. Montrose
A monolith. . A masterpiece of its own. Neverending reverberation. 97+/100




Ch. Cap de Faugeres
Taste more like cherry juice. This is wine??!




Ch. Tour Saint Christophe
Too mulberry. 88/100




Ch. La Fleur Morange Cuvee Mathilde
A crowd-pleaser.




Ch. La Voute
A discovery. Very fine juice. 90-91/100




Ch. Clos Saint Julien
Sublime perfume, but unfortunately decline on the palate.
.



Ch. Trotte Vieille
WOW………truely impressive. Gets greater and greater from sip to sip. Based on 49% Cabernet franc. Magic wine and with great potential. 95/100




Ch. Beausejour Duffau
Nice but not worth the 100 Euro.




Ch. Nenin
Too big on the palate.




Ch. Gazin
Starts quite reluctant, but accelerate quite fast on the palate. Very noble! Strong buy recommendation. 96/100




Ch. Le Gay
Defined and muscular on the palate. Convincing performance. 94/100



Cheers,
Martin

Hey, that’s my kind of wine! [wow.gif]

Nice brief notes. Looks like some of my regular favorites, like Talbot, Leoville Barton and Gazin, did quite well in this big vintage.

No doubt, with 2015 Ch. Batailley we have a true character wine. Love or Hate.

From 10 people, 2 people loved it.

Leoville Barton is indeed a masterpiece. My other favorites in this vintage were on arrivage Montrose, VCC, Tertre Roteboeuf and Leovilles Las Cases. Haven’t had the Gazen so far.
Cheers

I neglected to pick up Leo Barton and really should just ognore your note given the vintage and my age, but you have tempted me!

I also like this: “Ch. Beychevelle Too pleasing.” [wow.gif]

I am in the same boat: did not order the Barton, and have been kicking myself. But, I will correct this.

I can tell you 2015 Leoville Barton makes so much fun right now. We didn´t decant the wines, just pop&pour.

P.S. next to me a friend, a true Bordeaux-aficionado, said regarding LB, “I am impressed”

Thank you Martin for the excellent notes. I have purchased a number of the wines you endorsed (and thankfully none that you didn’t like!)

BTW, Vinopolis has the Leo B for $72/bottle, listing arrival in October.

P.S. if you´re interested in additional scores from a true Bordeaux-expert who also attended this tasting. Have a look:

I hope he’s on the money because he loved all of the 2015s he tasted that I bought! Domaine de Chevalier, Gazin, Leo Barton (today!), and Malartic Lagraviere.

Has the 2015 L. Barton escalated in price in the futures markets?

I just bought for $72. I don’t think it was much cheaper it was on release

I paid $50 for the 2014 in early futures

Yeah, I got the 14 late for $60

Was just having an email side-bar with John Morris about pricing. I think people have forgotten how relatively affordable Bordeaux was for 2014 futures, so many Classified Growths sub-$55. It was my largest futures purchase since the 2005 vintage. I picked up some beauties. I only kick myself for not grabbing Pichon Lalande and Montrose.

The only 2015 futures I bought was Les Carmes Haut Brion, mostly out of idle curiosity to see how the estate is transitioning. Later I grabbed some Lanessan.

I’ll now grab the Leoville.

I definitely agree that 14 was the bargain vintage. I bought a little of both

Jeez, I think I have only scored a handful of wines over 95points, when I used to score wines years ago

No doubt that there is a score inflation everywhere. Somtimes I think the system starts with 90pts.

On the other hand most of these 2015s are really spectacular. And wheter you give 98/100 like me or 94-96/100 by several highly regarded wine-journalists and even 97/100 by Jeb Dunnuck doesn´t change the fact 2015 Léoville Barton is worth to buy.

Well, unless you’re comparing to people who are waiting for their $32 2014 PLL from Premier Cru, you can still buy it for not much more than the futures price.

WTF is wrong with my quote here?