2011 bordeaux – in need of a magic wand?

Every November in Vintners’ Hall the Institute of Masters of Wine organises a tasting of more than 100 four-year-old top bordeaux, usually less than a month after the UGC’s major showing of two-year-old versions of much the same wines in the well-lit Hamlyn Hall of the Royal Opera House and about 10 weeks before the annual Southwold blind tasting for a long-standing group of professionals of wines that are just over three years old. Please don’t accuse us of an anti-Bordeaux bias!

I have just returned from last week’s orgy of 2012 tasting in Southwold that provided many an agreeable...