Prowein in Düsseldorf - arguably the largest and most important annual wine fair in the world - always runs from Sunday to Tuesday. While there are many highlights, a particular one is the UGCB tasting on Monday, between 11:00 am and 3:00 pm. It takes place in a separate hall, so you do not need a Prowein ticket to attend.
Before Prowein in March, the UGCB tours the USA and Canada to present their wines in Miami, Toronto, St John’s, New-York, Chicago, Las Vegas, Denver, San-Francisco and Los Angeles. We were booked for New York, but had to skip the tasting because of a severe snow storm.
UGCB
The Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux is a trade association that includes the 130 or so top chateaux from Bordeaux, excluding the 12 or so very top chateaux. Created in the 1970s by a group of chateau owners the objective was to pool their resources to raise the profile of their wines in export markets. It has now grown to a 4 million euro marketing program that includes organizing the primeur tastings for the new vintage in Bordeaux every year, trade tastings in all the major export countries and consumer events, such as the ‘Weekend des Grands Grand Cru’, held in Bordeaux each Spring.
Vintage 2012
Producer and writer Gavin Quinney (@GavinQuinney) provided his impressions of the 2012 vintage in Bordeaux on the liv-ex blog as a guest posting:
(1) 2012 is a good to very good vintage, but not a great one.
(2) It’s certainly a vintage for drinking, not investment. Many wines will be good to drink in the short to medium term.
(3) 2012 was a late harvest which tended to favor the earlier ripening Merlot over the Cabernets, partly because drizzle, humidity and finally heavy rain set in from the second week of October onwards.
(4) It is an uneven vintage but hundreds of reds have lovely color, supple fruit, crowd-pleasing texture and no hard edges.
(5) Happily, very few wines show any green, unripe character. The fruit is ripe (thanks to ten weeks of sunshine from mid-July onwards) even if many wines lack real depth, complexity and length.
(6) 2012 is notably strong in the 'précoce' terroirs of the Right Bank, and south of Bordeaux in the northern Graves. More often than not, for Merlot.
(7) The plateau of Pomerol is successful, but it’s tiny and expensive. Several candidates for ’wine of the vintage’ come from here.
(8) Merlot on the clay and limestone terroirs around the town of St-Emilion (and beyond) also fared well. Here there are some great wines, although you have to pick those that suit your palate, and pocket.
(9) There are many attractive Crus Classés in the Medoc, yet few big scoring wines for me (or for Mr Parker, I’d suggest). It might have been different if October had been kinder to the Cabernets.
(10) There are some real successes, and possible values, from all four of the major Medoc appellations (Margaux, St-Julien, Pauillac and St-Estephe) but there are several fairly disappointing wines, including some big names. I think you have to treat them on a chateau by chateau basis.
(11) It’s not quite correct to say that it’s a Right Bank vintage, however. There are some lovely wines from Pessac-Leognan on the left bank, south of Bordeaux, and many estates there produced fine dry whites to boot. The Graves should prove to be a source of values in 2012.
(12) There are many pretty wines from the petit chateaux of the Right Bank, less so for the Cru Bourgeois of the Left. It’s a vintage to re-evaluate after bottling at this level.
(13) Élevage - barrel ageing - will be key. With such gentle fruit, new oak could dominate while older oak barrels can dry out a wine. It's not that the wines are over-oaked; they could simply be under-wined.
(14) Thankfully, few estates got it wrong with the dreaded ’over-extraction’.
(15) Hundreds of estates have seriously upped their game in the last decade or so. There’s much more precision than there used to be - in the vineyard, with picking dates, in sorting the grapes, in the wine-making - and there’s stricter selection for the final blends. It shows in the wines, almost more so in 2012 than in a uniformly good year like 2010.
(16) It’s a fine vintage for dry whites, and not just at the top level in Pessac-Léognan. Most Sauvignon and Sémillon across Bordeaux were picked in fine weather in mid-September, in very good condition.
(17) The summer drought and October rains proved difficult for sweet wines after three excellent years on the trot. Although some big names declared that they wouldn't be making a wine this year (Yquem, Rieussec and so on) there are, in fact, some heroic efforts from Sauternes and Barsac. In small quantities.
(18) Comparison with another vintage? None, as far as the climate goes. 1998 perhaps, 2001 even? Not really. As it was a case of 'picking before the rains' for many chateaux, 2012 could even be a modern take on 1964 (great Pomerols, St-Emilions and Graves, awkward in the Medoc on the whole). But much has changed since the Beatles.
(19) Actually, never mind 1964, a lot has changed since 2004. Not least, the prices. Onwards and upwards.
Tasting Notes from Prowein 2015 in Düsseldorf – Bordeaux Tour by ombiasy Wine Tours (2015)
As usual at these tastings, the number of wineries present and pouring wines was quite substantial. With the time frame constraint, you either could opt for a speed-tasting or a selective tasting. My wife Annette and I opted for the latter and concentrated on wineries we had visited before on a ombiasy wine tour and/or wineries which are included in the Bordeaux Tour by ombiasy WineTours 2015. See: 4 Wine Tours by ombiasy coming up in 2015: Germany-East, Germany-South. Germany-Nord and Bordeaux
2012 Château Léoville Poyferré (Pourer: Anne Cuvelier)
A concentrated and full bodied wine with gentle tannins. Top!
Wine Enthusiast: 94-96 Points
Wine Spectator: 90-93 Points
Wine-Searcher Average Price in US$: 67
2012 Château Canon-la-Gaffelière (Pourer: Stephan von Neipperg)
50% Merlot, 50% Cabernet Franc. Deeply cored. Coffee, cassis, chocolate notes on the nose. A full-bodied, silky wine on the palate. Lovely and long finish.
Wine Advocate: 92-94 Points
Wine Spectator: 90-93 Points
Wine-Searcher Average Price in US$: 57
2012 Château Lafon-Rochet (Pourer: Basile Tesseron)
54% Cabernet Sauvignon, 41% Merlot and 5% Petit Verdot. Notes of wet wood, leather and black raspberries on the nose. Rich and medium to full bodied. Long finish, with mineral and cassis notes.
Stephen Tanzer's International Wine Cellar: 87-90 Points
Wine Enthusiast: 88-90 Points
Wine-Searcher Average Price in US$: 34
2012 Château Le Bon Pasteur (Pourer: Dany Rolland)
Notes of dark chocolate, espresso and plum on the nose. Medium to full-bodied wine. Soft tannins and a generous texture on the palate. Smooth finish.
Wine Cellar Insider: 88 – 90 Points
Wine-Searcher Average Price in US$: 75
2012 Château Gazin (Pourer: Nicolas de Bailliencourt)
Notes of wet wood, blackberries and cassis on the nose. A rich wine with a round finish.
Wine Advocate: 93 – 95 Points
Wine-Searcher Average Price in US$: 63
schiller-wine: Related Postings
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