Cercle Rive Droite

First official tasting of Bordeaux 2010 organized in Bordeaux by the Cercle Rive Droite last Monday, March 14. Some of the wines still hadn’t completed their malolactics, others had just finished. This complicates the future’s tasting, even for professionals. I didn’t taste everything for there are maybe 150 crus, but as usual, I spent time with Fronsac and Saint Emilion and also tasted 2 or 3 wines from other places

I especially liked:
Château Beaulieu Comtes de Taste, a great micro cuvee made from grafted vines, which I don’t remember the name.
A consistently good Fougas Maldoror, which, I believe, is currently in organic conversion.
Côte Montpezat always good
Dalem good, as well as La Dauphine, Moulin Haut Laroque, les Trois Croix, La Vieille Cure, of course, and the Aria cuvee from Château La Rivière, Beausoleil, Vray Croix de Gay delicious, Siaurac.
Grand Corbin Manuel, Lynsolence beautiful, Pressac, Sansonnet – which I alredy wrote about. Some nice organic wines like Fonroque and Grand Corbin Despagne, as well as Clos des Jacobins and of course Fleur Cardinale.

I found, in this group, at least 50% good, if not very good, wines and unfortunately a few over extracted, dry, unripe, too acidic and even some with Brett deviations, as well as TCA, judging by the incredible smell experienced during the buffet. This vintage is not as easy as 2009 at this early stage of tasting as some acidity levels make them difficult to taste. And yet, the quality of some wines exceeds any wines ever produced so far.
In conclusion, we will need the critics’ guidance.
Some amazing 2010 but not as homogeneous as announced.