TN: An unimportant tasting of 2016 Bordeaux

WINE TALK
41

As I said, the same vintage fingerprint is on the wines of eastern France, from Burgundy to the Southern Rhone. And it’s on display in the '16 Nebbiolo d’Albas. Dolcetto and barbera showed it, too, though the '16s of those have mostly sold through. A Caprilli Rosso di Montalcino was similar. It’s like a family resemblance running through the wines of very different regions, made from very different grapes.

42

I have often found new Bordeaux to be approachable for a six month/one year period after arrival and then start closing down for several years or more. Many 2016s are just starting to arrive and I expect to try a few half bottles over the next few months. [cheers.gif]

43

My generalizations about the vintage from the UGC tasting for the reds:

I do think this is a good vintage for Bordeaux. Almost everything I tasted—not Langoa Barton, of course!----was more open and giving than I expected and I’d hesitantly say that if you had a Bordeaux newbie who was curious about the region, this is a vintage I might start them on. OTOH, the wines were open to a degree that it was actually quite difficult for me to assess the ultimate bar for quality that they may achieve.

44

Interesting that you found them open. As I said in my original post, the wines last week were quite tight, not opulent at this stage. Sampling the leftovers the following two nights, my impressions remained pretty much the same. Only the Lagrange seemed to flesh out significantly overnight. I would not have introduced a newbie to Bordeaux with these.

45

I just got notice that my 2016s (well, 12 of my 18 half bottles) have come in at Total. It will be a long long time before I open them, but am pretty interested to see how they turn out. The Calon, for example, got super high marks from everyone, from Suckling (98, of course) to Jancis (18.5)

46

Hmm. Need to check on mine from TW.