After our Latour visit, we had a very short trip to Latour’s neighbour Château Pichon Lalande. Two wines here and both excellent: Réserve de la Comtesse was very floral and forward, Pichon Lalande another candidate for a top wine of the vintage. Before lunch I headed to the Union des Grands Crus tasting for St-Estèphe and Pauillac at Château Lynch-Moussas. Some lovely wines at this tasting, one that stood out was Château Ormes de Pez, always a favourite at Glengarry. This year it’s 47% Cabernet, 44% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot; very classic in style, this should represent excellent value.
Next up was Château Pontet-Canet and lunch generously provided by Alfred Tesseron. It was of course lovely to catch up with Alfred again and his 2014 wine was excellent, very Pontet in style. Black fruits, taut in structure, mineral, elegant with fine tannin, a wonderful balanced wine. Lunch at Pontet is the best place in the Medoc during primeur week to eat – oh and the cheese. Affiner Betty’s from Toulouse make the journey to Bordeaux, with only a small selection of their cheeses. They have 6 caves of cheese stored and ageing, with hundreds of different types of cheese. After lunch, whilst an afternoon nap would have been nice, there was plenty more wine to try and it was onto Margaux…
