Well, there is no doubt that Bordeaux has another very good vintage languishing in its cellars – much more classic in nature than the voluptuous 2009. As you know from my cri de coeur about the relationship between wine commentators and the Bordeaux fine-wine market, Primeurs 2010 – when to publish?, and my analysis published on Saturday of just how different primeurs samples can be from the finished, bottled wine, Bordeaux 2010 – what are we really tasting?, I do have doubts about the whole primeurs circus.
However, I canvassed the views of Purple pagers about this issue, and in particular when and whether to publish descriptions and scores, in this thread on our Members' forum and the majority of members are in favour of having as much information to hand as early as possible. This thread, incidentally, was viewed nearly 6,000 times so I think the subject got a fair hearing. So, thanks to sterling work on the part of Tamlyn Currin, to whom I sent off my batches of tasting notes every evening after tasting, we are able to begin publishing my tasting notes on these embryonic wines – for better or worse.
We begin today with a category that was exceptionally exciting in 2010, dry white bordeaux, and will try – Tam's brain and fingers withstanding the pressure – to continue to publish a major commune (eg Pauillac) or region (eg Médoc and Haut-Médoc) every day until two weeks today. You can see how we divided up the wines geographically in our reports on the 2009 vintage here. Keep following Bordeaux 2010 – guide to our coverage to see what else is new.
I will, as usual, be publishing an overview of the vintage on Saturday. In the picture, by the way, is Denis Durantou of Église-Clinet in Pomerol with a novel solution to the problem of what to do with all the volume of 2010 that was expectorated last week. His special spittoons comprise two bits of unrelated equipment. The stainless steel bins with a hole in the top come from IKEA and the giant green plastic funnels are inverted tomato plant protectors. Perhaps someone better informed than me can suggest the correct name for them and the usual use for the bins. Dirty laundry? Surely not.