Chateau Reyson
Haut Medoc (Cru Bourgeois Superieur)
2005
Tesco £10.99
Sitting on my review desk here at Chateau Blogspot is this hugely tempting little number from the left bank of Bordeaux which is a 50:50 blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Now as regular and attentive readers of my blog will have come to learn, the basic rule of Bordeaux wines is that Merlot (predominantly grown on the right bank where clay soil dominates) is the full bodied wide boy while the Cabernet Sauvignon, with its greater concentration of tannins, is the more complex and sometimes aloof aristocrat, which prefers dryer, gravelly soil.
So here we have a straight down the middle spilt between Trevor (Merlot) and Tristan (Cab Sauv) but grown on the loftier left bank where Cabernet dominates and where the more complex, longer to age Bordeaux wines emerge, often with huge price tags to match.
What will be interesting to taste is whether the deep berry burst tongue coatings associated with Merlot are calmed down by the loftier Cabernet Sauvignon whose characteristic tannin substructure gives Bordeaux wines their intellectual complexity and texture. With a vintage just four years old we are asking quite a lot from Tristan and his tannins so I'm hoping they have matured enough to give the wine a silky refinement while additing a touch of austerity to Trevor's full on, up for it Merlot-fest.
Anyway, all this is purely a wine tease of the highest order and the answers to my oenological speculations will only be fully known if Harry's passes his driving test tomorrow and Ruth gets a day's home leave on Sunday. I shall keep you posted. Glasses and cork screws at the ready.
In the meantime, the beefy, mouth exploding Roc de Lussac St Emilion (see my blog of 1 November) that I bought at £7.99 is now back to its full price of £13.99. Quel horreur.
No comments:
Post a Comment