A youthful wine that is just starting to flesh out and show some complex little things beyond its tremendous core of delicious fruit.
I really cannot get over the intensity of fruit on this wine. This is a Cabernet Franc vintage for VCC, something like 30% in the mix, and it shows in a glorious way, giving the wine a really broad range in the fruit spectrum. The attack is all red fruits, an intense core of deep, ripe, but high acid red fruits that made me think of a structured vintage of Rougeard. The core is rounded out by dark and plummy fruits, some tangy quality given the vintage. Moist tobacco leaf, wet mossy earth and truffles as the wine opened over the evening. Decanted for 45 minutes, would recommend a bit longer as the wine did open up much more into the glass.
Excellent wine, I immediately emailed my local retailer for more when I got home, sadly he was all gone!
Very quietly, VCC seems to have taken its place as the best Pomerol outside of Petrus and possibly Lafleur. While I understand the allure of Le Pin, I can’t think of a recent vintage that I like it as much as VCC.
A recent tasting showed the wines can age effortlessly for decades. Since the mid nineties the wines have been consistently superb, and for me, the greatest VCC is 2005, but the 2004 is one of the best of the vintage and not too far away.
Seems I am not the only one to see how good the quality is, as prices are on the up, although there are some stray bottles of the brilliant 2014 at around $160 a bottle.
2004 VCC was one of the wines of the vintage for me back when I tasted at release, and at the winery. Have not tasted since, and so thanks for the data.
Nice note…I should hunt down a few bottles of VCC. I’ve tasted a few bottles over the years, all were wonderful, but I have never bought any. Not sure why…
I agree Mark. It’s solidly in my top five favorite Bordeaux. I don’t put the First Growths in my top five - for the obvious reason, price - but VCC is First Growth quality regardless.
Nice note Robert. There was a good event here with Alexandre Thienpont a few months ago and he opened possibly another wine of the vintage, 2006, which was also excellent. He also spoke highly of 2004 and noted that these types of vintages are simply more interesting from a wine grower’s perspective.
I’d recommend listening to his interview with Levi Dalton.
Thanks for the note, Robert; I had the '98 a little over a month ago, my first try of VCC of any vintage. I’d bought the bottle on release and it was in like-new condition. It reminded me a bit of La Conseillante’s style – sneaky power, or maybe quiet power, not an obvious blockbuster. The three of us drinking it with dinner liked it a great deal; I don’t drink a ton of Bordeaux these days but this (like La Conseillante) really hit my pleasure zone.