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Jean-Marc QuarinCarnets de dégustationsAn independent buyer's guide to the wines of Bordeaux www.quarin.com Chronicle n° 2 (May 16, 2005) MARGAUX, LAFITE, MOUTON AND PETIT MOUTON 2000The tasting took place in September 2004 at a private home. Château MARGAUX 2000 Margaux First Classified Growth - 99 - 100Average score over nine tastings: 98 . This is my second tasting of the wine since it is in bottles. Just before bottling, I assessed it at 100. This splendid wine has not lost any of its sensuality in its pulpy entry. After the entry, it becomes yielding, plying yet resistant, but ever so gentle, without the slightest hint of youthful tannic stiffness. I closely observed what happens after mid-palate. The enchantment truly starts to operate as the wine slowly acquires depth. Everything is so perfectly balanced that it is impossible to resist swallowing. Absolutely unique and magnificent! A wine to relish in slow sips. As a matter of fact, the three of us finished the bottle. Château LAFITE ROTHSCHILD 2000 Pauillac First Classified Growth - 96Average score over three tastings: 95. This is my first tasting of the wine since bottling. Just before bottling, I had assessed it at 95. This wine needs time to open up, both on the nose as on the palate. Very dense and tightly woven on the palate, the wine just wants some time to loosen up. For the moment, it does not have a seductive character. Its style is very Pauillac-like and the powerful finish is especially promising, with its beautiful length and its tannins, perfectly coated in the flesh of the fruit. A bottle for the future. Château MOUTON ROTHSCHILD 2000 Pauillac First Classified Growth - 94Average score over seven tastings: 94 . This is my third tasting of the wine since it was bottled. Just before bottling, I had assessed it at 94 and 95. Tasted right after Lafite, Mouton seems more subdued; it does not convey such a strong presence and does not settle as quietly in mid-palate. Very rapidly, the wine develops slightly woody sensations in which the fruit does not come anywhere close to the bright aromatic sparkle of Lafite. PETIT MOUTON DE MOUTON ROTSCHILD 2000 Pauillac Second label - 88 - 89 Average score over two tastings: 89 . This is the first time I tasted the wine since it was bottled. Just before bottling, I had assessed it at 89. The color is not as intense as for its older sibling, nor does it have as much flesh, yet it shows excellent balance and is definitely a pleasant wine. I like its flattering aspect, which is without complexity – just the result of good work. Wait until 2007-2008 before opening the first bottles. While we were tasting these 2000 wines among friends, I suddenly felt like including Moulin Haut Laroque 2000 in the tasting. No sooner said than done. And oh! what a nice surprise it was! We did not experience the wine as a fall-off, but as being different. Its very right-bank style opulence and especially, its extremely solid structure (very limestone, and very Fronsac like) formed a strong contrast with the more refined and much more aromatic character of, for instance, a Lafite. I very much liked the flesh of Moulin Haut Laroque 2000, though it lacked aromatic distinction in the finish in order to compare well with the stars we had just tasted before. However, it was clearly better than Petit Mouton, which is a much more costly wine. This comparison confirmed me in the idea that Moulin Haut Laroque is one of the foremost Fronsac wines, and that since 2000, it is qualitatively better than a good number of Saint Emilion Classified Growths. And also, from the point of tasting know-how, the comparison once again made me aware of a major observation, namely that olfactive and especially tactile nuances are determinant in establishing a hierarchy between growths. I have been writing about Bordeaux wines for almost fifteen years now, and I have always differentiated young wines by their tactile impression on the palate. Some even went as far as to write "Jean-Marc Quarin, the school of the tactile feel of wines". And so today you receive an up-date of my tasting notes on Moulin Haut Laroque between 2003 and 1995, just for pleasure’s sake. The tasting took place in 2004 at the estate. If you can, try spending some time with the winemaker, Mr. Jean-Noël Hervé. All my encounters with him have been enriching to me.Château MOULIN HAUT LAROQUE, Fronsac Area: 18 hectares among which 15 in production. Blend: 65% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc, 10% Cabernet Sauvignon and 5% Malbec. Owner: Jean-Noël Hervé. Phone: ++33 (0)5 57 84 32 07. E-mail: hervejnoel@wanadoo.fr. The growth always presented a very steady quality, but starting in 1999, the quality clearly increased. The growth has regularly shown up among the regional successes. Vintage 1990 remains in our memories. Even though we are on the Right Bank, the world of Merlot, Jean-Noël Hervé thinks that his old Cabernets Francs are the soul of his wine, even though their culture is very demanding. But Mr. Hervé is not looking for the easy way out; his main concern is to produce the best wine. Let me remind you that during the 2000 futures campaign, Moulin Haut Laroque was one of my favorites and I assessed it at 89. This vintage is ageing quite beautifully. 2003 - 88 A beautiful dark and very intense color. The very fruity and ripe nose displays hints of cocoa, vanilla and cherry. A very charming wine, juicy and fat on the palate, where it develops very melting and fruity on to a relatively long finish with quite some tannins. 2002 - 87 A beautiful dark red. The very fruity nose smells of cherry. The wine is very melting on the palate and develops over a juicy, elongated body with a delicate tactile feel and noble tannins. Rather aromatic and tasty persistency. Wait until 2008 before drinking. This wine is a beautiful success in this vintage, which was not an easy one on the right bank. 2001 - 89 The color is as beautiful as ever. The nose is fruity and ripe, with a touch of spices. The superb attack is fleshy and savory. The palate develops with a delicate tactile feel and becomes quite opulent in mid-palate. The wine then unfolds full of life and fruit towards a long finish in which the tannins seem to vanish, leaving an original aromatic persistency of ripe fruit with a mineral touch. It is delicious! You can taste it now, or wait until 2007. 2000 - 90 The best recent success of the estate. A beautiful dark and lush color. The delicate and fruity nose is especially creamy. This palate certainly offers the best coating, along with the most flesh and power of all the wines of the estate tasted today. Very fat, dense and tannic, yet without roughness, this wine offers a long mineral, ripe and savory finish. You can taste it now, or you can wait until 2007-2010 before drinking it. Let's also remember that 2000 is the year the new vat room was installed. 1999 - 88 A slightly woody wine to the nose, but delicious on the palate. The substance is tender but not fluid. It does not show as much energy, nor as much tension as vintages above, but it displays a gentleness I had not seen here yet. This wine is among the successes of the right bank in 1999. Congratulations for this original charming wine! To drink before 2007. The estate owes its success this year to a greater surface of the foliage. Four years of work were needed to replace 12,000 poles and many kilometres of wire so as to lift up the leaves of the vines. As a result, the fruit became riper, the tannins more refined and overall, the estate managed to reduce very much the impression of coarseness, which had been associated with the Fronsac terroir for so long. 1998 - 89 In this wine, the color is turning to brown on the fringe. It has a powerful and slightly rustic nose though it is very fruity. It enters the palate suavely, then becomes juicy and round in mid-palate. The wine combines fat, tenderness and energy and is devoid of roughness. It develops power after mid-palate, and still has the old-fashioned type of tannins which are absent in vintage 2000. A superb wine, I think! Wait until 2007. It will keep until 2015-2020. 1997 - 87/88 Credited with a score of 16 as a future, I am struck by the mellowness of this wine and by its excellent general shape. Today, it still displays the beautiful maturity and tenderness it showed in 1999. The attack is not as ample as in more recent vintages, but the wine pleases by its general tenderness, its resilient substance and its lovely charm. Devoid of even the slightest vegetal touch, it is one of the best wines of the vintage. To drink before 2008-2010. 1996 - 86 A dark red color of average to good intensity. Slightly evolved. Nose: well defined, average intensity, slightly creamy. Needs decanting. Compared to the others, this wine tastes of fresh blackcurrant, calling to mind the fact that the Cabernet Sauvignon very barely reached maturity that year. This aspect makes it resemble certain wines from Chili. It lacks fat and amplitude while the tannic grain in the finish is not very perceptible. The only thing to do is wait for the wine to acquire patina. This wine reminds us of wines from the past. 1995 - 86 The good success of this vintage on the right bank made me hope for much more. I suspect the bottle was not very good. After checking in my data base, I note that its average score is around 88. The color has started to evolve. The nose stays withdrawn. Thought there is clearly more velvet than in the 1996 thanks to the ripe Merlot, the rustic tannic texture of the finish definitely lacks velvet. I need to check this wine again. 2004 FUTURES CAMPAIGN Concerning the slow release of the prices. You may have observed that the estates preferred to wait till after the famous "Ice Saints" (the saints' days considered to be the limit of likely night frost in France). We learn from past experience that night frosts are still possible in Bordeaux in the first half of May (for example: the vineyards of Domaine de Chevalier froze on May 10th, 1982). By reducing the 2005 harvest, spring frost would have absorbed some of the overproduction on the wine market, influencing in turn the price policy of vintage 2004. Which proves that the pricing of a vintage in Bordeaux is always correlated with the vintage just before or just after. Let us just imagine that 2005 turns out to be a really great vintage; vintage 2004 would of course sink into oblivion. But if 2005 turns out a disaster, vintage 2004 will seem greater. Concerning current rumors and views on the vintage. An estate owner reported to me that some negociants are trying to "break" the image of the quality of right bank vintage 2004. So take care, consumers, not to be fooled by this. It is not because there is no market for vintage 2004 that the quality of the wines should be condemned. These things are totally distinct. Unfortunately, in Bordeaux, a wine merchants' region if any there is, these two aspects have all too often been tied together since for a merchant, a good wine is one which brings in money rather than one which tasted good. Food for thought... The 2004 prices and best values (taste) for money. The offers presently running seem to ignore the market. In order to get consumers and professional buyers interested, prices should be lower. For the moment, the two wines offering the best value (taste) for money are: - Lafon Rochet, a Saint-Estèphe Classified Growth, priced around 15 Euro, exclusive of tax. - Lagrange, a Saint-Julien Classified Growth, priced around 18 Euro, exclusive of tax. Do not hesitate to let me know your opinions or suggestions. Jean-Marc Quarin© Copyright : All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author: Jean-Marc Quarin Sarl, 10 allée de Ginouilhac, BP 40, 33320 Le Taillan-Médoc. France. Tél. 00 33 (0)5 56 35 83 93. Fax 00 33 (0)5 56 35 86 50. E-mail : jmquarin@wanadoo.fr

2005 Chronicles

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