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It wasn’t easy picking my Bordeaux Wine Of The Year for 2013 when all the runners-up also scored perfectly, but that is the magic of the 2010 vintage, a truly spectacular year.
As I wrote last week, discounting 2009, you have to go back to 1961 or 1959 to find anything else on the same level. But the very best of the vintage come from the Right Bank and look back even further to 1950, 1947 and 1945 all at the same time, and that’s why I had to choose the 2010 Vieux Chateau Certan as my Bordeaux Wine Of The Year. Drink it and you instantly recall the historic years of VCC. It’s a wine that shows such intensity, complexity, and finesse; it’s mesmerizing with each sip.
Of course, the VCC 2010 is expensive and sells for between $350 and $400 a bottle. But consider some of my other runners-up: Le Pin, which shares the same winemaker, Alexandre Thienpont (with whom I discuss the 2010 vintage for VCC in the video below); or Petrus, which has neighboring vineyards, sell at almost ten times the price a bottle. What’s more important to take from my runners-up list is that 2010 Pomerols really have the power to blow you away. They all have such depth of fruit and toned backbones of acidity with bold and firm styles reminiscent of traditional, great vintages of the past.
Aside from the Right Bank, for my runners-up I chose two wines that inspired me in 2010 from Bordeaux: Ducru-Beaucaillou and Pontet-Canet. Not only are they a fraction of the price of the First Growths, but they are also perfect wines. They really do offer similar quality to say Margaux, Latour and or Mouton-Rothschild.
Runners-up (Click on the wine for the note – all scored 100 points)
#2 2010 Lafleur
#3 2010 Petrus
#4 2010 Le Pin
#9 2010 Margaux
#10 2010 Latour
