My Article: Thinking About 2004 Bordeaux

I had a fascinating blind tasting yesterday at Watson’s Wine shop in Central, Hong Kong. I tasted about two dozen Bordeaux at prices between HK$200 and HK$700 a bottle (about $25 to $90) for a project I am working on as wine editor of the leading luxury magazine on the island, Hong Kong Tatler.

Most of the wines were from good but not great vintages, such as 2004, 2006 and 2007, with a few top vintage wines from 2000 and 2005. And I found the best drinking were the 2004s, although the 2006s were also just opening.

By comparison, the 2005s were very tight and not giving much. Some were even austere and overly tannic at this stage of their evolution. And most were second wines from big names or crus bourgeois. The great names will be tight as a drum right now

The tasting made me realize that I sometimes overlook many of these good to very good vintages while focusing on the top ones such as 2000 or 2005.

Take a good look at 2004 at the moment. I am ordering the wines in restaurants and drinking what I have in my cellar. Some of the top wines I have drunk recently include Rauzan-Segla, Clos du Marquis and Montrose, and they are about half the price of recent top vintages, such as 2009 and 2010. Some wines from lesser estates are delicious too. I recently enjoyed the 2004 Carignan Prima.

I would love to go back and try some of my top scoring 2004s such as Haut-Brion, Ausone, Lafleur, Léoville Las Cases, Vieux-Château-Certan, and Cos d’Estournel. Anyone try some of these recently?

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