On Wednesday 22nd February 2012, BWI hosted a wine masterclass for clients (and some lucky staff) featuring the wines of Château Margaux. The tasting was lead by Mr Paul Pontallier, General Manager of Margaux.
Paul Pontallier is famously urbane and suave. An arresting speaker, he is philosophical and engagingly poetic about wine and its place in our lives. Like his wines, beneath the genuine charm is a steely core. For more than thirty years, his conviction, drive and tenacity have steered Château Margaux from underperformer to star performer, renowned for elegantly high quality.
Paul Pontallier is famously urbane and suave. An arresting speaker, he is philosophical and engagingly poetic about wine and its place in our lives. Like his wines, beneath the genuine charm is a steely core. For more than thirty years, his conviction, drive and tenacity have steered Château Margaux from underperformer to star performer, renowned for elegantly high quality.
Despite Pontallier’s background (he trained as an agricultural engineer and has a doctorate in oenology), he didn’t weigh down our audience with technical detail. Our guests at this event were wine lovers. Most have Margaux in their cellars – even if a few complained they couldn’t afford the most recent vintages. All protested their intention to drink the wines, eventually.
Pontallier is consistently unabashed by questions of cost: high prices enable investment in the relentless quest for ever greater quality that has characterised his time at Margaux. The UK market remains, he stressed, of great importance to them. We Brits are ‘sophisticated’ and ‘demanding’ consumers, and such consumers motivate a producer towards excellence.
It was a pleasure to meet and hear from Aurélian Valance, Château Margaux’s Commercial Director. The two make a good pair, and I enjoyed Aurélian’s more testing questions of his boss.
We tasted 12 wines (spittoons, it must be said, were mostly unused):
Pavillon Blanc in 2010, 2003, 1995
Pavillon Rouge in 2009, 2003, 2000
Château Margaux in 2005, 2003, 2000, 1996, 1990 and 1986
My notes follow. My star wine was probably Margaux 1996: feel free to argue for your own champion!
Sarah Abbott MW
Flight 1 - Pavillon Blanc 2010, 2003, 1995
Pavillon Blanc wine has captivated me since I was served it blind several years ago. Pavillon Blanc is delightful, singular and (increasingly) serious. It is part of that very select band of age worthy white wines made from Sauvignon Blanc. While it is true that some Graves properties have reduced the proportion of Semillon in favour of Sauvignon Blanc, serious examples of pure Sauvignon are rare beasts. The point about Pavillon Blanc, as Paul made clear, is that it transcends its grape variety. These vines grow in a stony and long-established vineyard that, for reasons of administrative oversight after the disease epidemics of the 1800s, lost its ‘Margaux’ appellation. Despite being ‘just’ Bordeaux Blanc, this white wine is one of my favourite Bordeaux, perhaps because it’s just so darn singular. Forget about piercingly aromatic but essentially solo-voiced wines with limited ageing potential. Pavillon Blanc is mineral, emphatic, secretly exotic and mysteriously fresh.
The orthodoxy is that 2003 was a hot year inimical to really fine wine. It is fascinating (to me at least) how that diagnosis is being revisited. Pavillon 2003 had nothing to apologise for. It was fragrant and freshly waxy; full but not heavy. It had the mysterious balance and ripe minerality that reminds me of fine white Rhône. It was certainly less chiseled than other 2 in this flight, and had a much quieter varietal character. But it was delicious, balanced and nuanced, and everyone on my table loved it.
Vintage 1995 was the star for many - golden in colour but fresh as a daisy on the nose. It was delicately aromatic, light-footed and sleekly textured.
Pavillon Blanc 2010 was much less expressive, but impressed me the most. There was a notable leap in intensity from the earlier vintages – I thought it had Burgundian Grand Cru levels of extract and potential. It was deeply mineral, with very pure but understated Sauvignon aromatics. It was toned and full of energy. The bad news is that just 1000 cases of this lovely wine were produced – I remember Paul telling us during the 2010 En Primeurs that they had discarded almost 60% of the production to maintain that nervy intensity. From 2009, Pavillon (in white and red) has been promoted in terms of quality aspiration. The introduction of a third wine permits a much stricter selection. These courageous changes in vineyard management and selection were there to be read in this totally unready but very exciting Pavillon Blanc 2010.
Pavillon Rouge 2009, 2003, 2000
As with the whites, the most recent vintage (Pavillon Rouge 2009) was a leap up in seriousness. It had exuberant but refined aromatics, notable concentration, and sleek, tapered tannin. The 2003 was more forthright, with sweet fruit and a hint of spice. It had a lovely smooth attack, but told the story of its hot year with tannins more suede than silk on the finish. I liked it a lot, but it probably suffered from the absence of a slow-cooked daube of beef. Pavillon Rough 2000 had a lovely scent, but was still very youthful. This was a more classic Margaux: intense but not weighty, with graceful, supple charm.
Margaux 2005 and Margaux 2003
As Paul reminded us, 2005 was the vintage of blessings: a blissfully textbook year.
The ease of the year has been captured in the harmony of the wine, but Margaux 2005 was absolutely no push over. We all kept coming back to it – trying to find a way in. Drinking this fine, harmonious but hopelessly young wine was like trying to climb up a scented, polished granite globe. It had seductive violet cream aromatics, and a hint of pure, sweet spice. On the palate, it was sleek, sumptuous, dense and layered. “We thought you would like to try it, says Paul, but it would be a pity, if not a crime, to drink this too soon.” We criminals tucked in, but anyone lucky enough to have some of this in their cellar should forget about it for 20 years.
2003 was probably the revelation of the tasting. It was much more open weave than the 2005, but astonishingly refined, fresh and scented. Pontallier alluded to a factor of success in 2003 which I’ve heard from many others: keeping your nerve about the picking date. It was possible to pick too early, despite the heat of the vintage. In extreme heat and drought, vines close the stomata (little mouths) on their leaves to keep precious moisture in, but in doing so keep the gases essential for photosynthesis out. And so everything stops – and tannins certainly don’t get ripened. They may get suntanned, but that’s a different thing, giving more abrasive textures. From the moment we decanted this wine at 11am, the room filled with its lifted, floral, Turkish-delight aromas. It was less concentrated than the 2005, but finely succulent, intense and nuanced. A great success, and a great pleasure, too.
Margaux 2000 and Margaux 1996
As Paul put it “2000 is what we used to think of as a really good vintage, before 2005 and the vintages after that.” (In 2000, a warm, sunny August and September was interrupted by relatively light rain before an Indian summer swooped back in.) Margaux 2000 looked very young. It had just a whisper of developed aromatics: sanguine and savoury, with pure, black, stony fruit. It was notably supple and graceful on the palate, with finely delineated textures and delicate intensity. Just enough flesh here – by the standards of the most recent vintages it’s very light-footed. I loved it, especially the aromatic nuance on the long, delicately intense finish.
I should confess to a personal obsession with 1996 Bordeaux. I’ve always loved this vintage in general, but admit to a high regard for strictness. I was reassured by Paul’s introduction: this is one of his favourite vintages of Margaux. Or rather, it’s his favourite vintage of old Margaux. “What’s changed?” asked a guest. “We have more depth and density in the more recent vintages”, says Paul. Margaux 1996 doesn’t look like a 15 year old wine: the colour was a good, deep ruby with very thin garnet rim. The aromas were just, almost grudgingly, showing some development: they were deep, stony, bloody and pure. This was understated, but profound, a cool, unhurried character with fine, firm tannins and a very determined, straight journey across the palate. It was almost stern, but softened by a covering of very pure, athletic fruit. This is the vintage that ushered in a much higher proportion of Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend for Château Margaux. I know we in the wine trade tend to bang on about how good and underrated 1996 is, but this is currently around the same price as the 2003 and is stunningly good.
Margaux 1990 and Margaux 1986
This was probably the most entertaining pair. For one thing, everyone had relaxed, and were happily offering up (very intelligent) thoughts on the wines. For another, the recent converts to Bordeaux, and my younger colleagues, were mystified by the 1986. They sniffed and frowned as if they’d come across a strange creature sleeping in the woods. “Sarah, what is going on with this wine?” “This, gentlemen”, I whisper, “is Old Fashioned Bordeaux. Herbaceous, tannic, and resolutely un-fruity. From grapes that would probably be considered barely ripe by today’s standards. Isn’t it great?” My twenty-something colleague clearly doubted my sanity. The colour of this 1986 was strikingly deep – it looked more youthful than the 1990. It is the style of strict, herbaceous, demanding and almost indestructible wine that was our paradigm for Bordeaux greatness up until about 30, or maybe 20, years ago. Paul introduced the wines as from “two completely different families of vintages.” Of course, the 1990 was all sweetness, at least as far as the fruit was concerned. This vintage, from a warm summer and early harvest, was pliant and generous, with alluring aromas of rose petals and sweet spice. In a hint of where Bordeaux is to arrive to 15 years later, it retained structure and grip despite that welcoming fruit, and finished fresh and focused. It is the clear favourite of the room. But I love the stubborn, recalcitrant 1986.
This last pair make for a nice round up. The greatest achievement in Bordeaux, Paul believes, is that during the last 25 years producers have “gained on both sides”. Today, even the most serious wines of Bordeaux are enjoyable and accessible relatively early in their long lives. Asperity is no longer a prerequisite for ageing, or greatness. And yet these are serious, dense, complex wines, whose age worthiness permits the development of magical complexity.
This approachability has certainly done no harm in Bordeaux’s conquering of new markets, and of the global world of new wine lovers. The increased competition may be a source of some regret to we British wine lovers (and Pontallier paid tribute to our centuries old love affair with Bordeaux), but is no more than a reflection of the times in which we live. Wine tells the story of our world. And there really is no denying the quality, character and integrity of these great wines.
It was an extraordinary line-up, with each vintage telling its own story. The greatest revelations for me were the 1996 and 2003 Margaux. As you rightly say, the wine trade have been banging the drum about 1996 Bordeaux for a long time but many of the best wines have remained very reserved and understated. If the 1996 Margaux is anything to go by, it seems they are starting to come out of their shells. Wonderfully complex and classically proportioned; this was a favourite with many of the tasters I spoke with.
ReplyDeleteIt was the 2003 that surprised me most, though. As you say, this is a vintage marked by extreme heat and drought and I have certainly tasted my fair share of overcooked, jammy wines which are in some cases falling apart already. The 2003 Margaux impressed me with its incredible concentration and sheer impact, married with such elegance and finesse. Maybe not typical Margaux and perhaps not even typical Bordeaux but inspirational nonetheless.