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06/06/2018

Bordeaux En Primeur Latest Releases

by Giles Cooper (Head of Marketing & PR)
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A raft of releases today, some exciting, some… less so.

The first scoop was Calon Segur which was released at GBP 738. One of our favourite wines of the vintage, and a consistent scorer across the critics, it was in huge demand and as such was sold out immediately.

This was followed by the top-performing wines from the Wertheimer brothers, Canon (GBP 810), Rauzan Segla (GBP 648) and the newly-acquired Berliquet (GBP 372). Due to its massive rise in fame over the past couple of years, since its 100-point score from Neal Martin in 2015, Canon was oversubscribed from the start and sold out immediately. Rauzan Segla is not to be sniffed at however: not only does Neal Martin score it the same as Canon (with a fine 92-94pts), he states: “Whereas in 2015 I might have opted for the Right Bank wine under Nicolas’s charge, Château Canon, in 2017 I have a preference for his Left Bank.” In addition it achieves an excellent 94-96pts from Lisa Perrotti-Brown at the Wine Advocate and 94-95pts from James Suckling.

Not every estate in Margaux was able to coax such magnificent aromatics and precision of palate in 2017. It balances perfectly the cool, clean but concentrated fruit with the crisp, defined, almost saline mineral characters which really show the sublime quality of the vineyard. A beautifully handled wine that expresses the true nature of the vintage and the terroir. Indeed it is hard to think of a Left-Bank, 2nd Growth estate which can compete on a quality/price ratio in 2017: in our view this is one of the ‘must-buy’ wines of the campaign.

Berliquet will certainly benefit from the shared ownership in years to come.

Then in the afternoon we saw perennial BI favourite Grand Puy Lacoste at GBP 648 “Readers will know that I hold Grand Puy Lacoste up as the bastion of quintessential Pauillac” says Neal andwe certainly believe that nothing – outside of Chateau Latour – actually delivers that truly inimitable graphite, gravel and cedar character that typifies this rare region quite like Grand Puy Lacoste. The most consistent of wines from the nicest of producers (it shouldn’t matter that owner Francois-Xavier Borie is a thoroughly nice and decent man, but somehow it does…) this year’s effort is characterised by the cool and even summer ripening periodresulting in a wine of great finesse, with fine, sweet-edged tannins and a lovely weight of cool, precise but concentrated fruit.

Jane Anson, Decanter magazine’s Bordeaux-based expert, awards it 94 points and calls it one of her wines of the vintage – “a must buy”– and Neal Martin of Vinous states “Those who love the classic lines of “GPL” will enjoy this 2017”.

Also released today were:

GiscoursGBP 510

Brane CantenacGBP 576

Feytit ClinetGBP 490