Next week – Saturday 24 August 2019 – our office is organiser of The Great Bordeaux 2016 Tasting.
The vintage, for me, is the “New 1982”.
When I first tasted 2016 in the spring of 2017, the fruit was so phenonically ripe, yet so ripped with backbone from skin and other tannins, and braced with unfettered freshness. I remarked to Christian Moueix (at La Fleur Petrus) that 2016 was the “Beaujolais Nouveau of Bordeaux”.
Tasting 2016 regularly throughout 2017, 2018, and as recently as March and April 2019 on two separate trips to Bordeaux, the wines have closed somewhat and are no longer as exuberant as during the spring of 2017. That time, they were loud and clear like a newborn baby, infant grapechildren that they were.
In spite of their having become more restrained, the vintage remains mighty impressive.
If you have signed up for the tasting at The Tower Club here in Singapore next week (the tasting is fully booked), here are a few tips on how you can get the most out of the exclusive, one-afternoon-only tasting.
- 33 wines to taste in total
- About 2 to 3 minutes to taste a wine
- Around 66 to 99 minutes in total
- Do not talk to someone whom you can talk to on another day
- A taster does not network during a tasting
- Just say “Sorry, got work to do, talk another time”
- Wherever possible, taste less tannic, lighter wines first (nosing the wine will give a clue)
- Always taste dry before sweet (there are no sweet wines on Saturday 24 August 2019)
- Decide for yourself whether you prefer white before red or the other way around
A good tasting.