A raft of relatively minor releases – Grand Corbin, Blanc de Lynch Bages (described by Neal Martin as ‘very fine indeed’), Carbonnieux red and white, La Fleur Cardinale, and then getting more serious: Jean-Philippe Janoueix’s La Confession, a very well made saint Emilion which rates a score of 92-95 from Robert Parker. Malartic Lagraviere in Pessac-Leognan scores well in red (92-94 RP) and white (18.5 Steven Spurrier). Echo de Lynch Bages, the newly renamed (in 2009) second wine of Lynch Bages, which like its big brother gets better and better.
Then we start getting into the really big boys, Giscours, at £500 is certainly pushing up the level for its reputation here – it is a nicely fresh style and rates 17.5 from Jancis and 92-95 from Robert Parker.
Pontet Canet and Calon Segur are both also out, but with the amount released down both these hotly demanded wines are on allocation. If any stock remains after last years’ buyers we will go next to those who have wish-listed, so get you order in now.
The second wine of Cos d’Estournel Pagodes de Cos has also been released. As was remarked by Jean-Guillaume Prats when we tasted (and he obviously said the same thing to Robert Parker) this is a better wine than many examples of Cos from the ’70s and ’80s – which you can take as a way of preparing the market for this price.
This afternoon sees the arrival on the market of last year’s runaway sucess Haut Bergey, as well as Phelan Segur, Larrivet Haut Brion, and many more. It is very hard to do justice to them all when they all come out at once, but they should not have waited so long.