"Thuning" up the palate

Post by Alex Lallos | Saturday, March 27th

Here we are in Bordeaux once again! As I sit here with some (extremely rare) spare time, trying to recall what little French I can, it feels good to be back for my third go-round of en primeurs tastings. Especially so considering that there has already been a lot of talk about the 2009 vintage as compared to my previous two trips for the '07 and '08 vintages. These should prove to be an excellent reference point going into this highly touted (and frankly heavily hyped) vintage.

After arriving in Bordeaux around 3:30 in the afternoon on Friday we settled down to regain our bearings (read: 30 minutes to throw our luggage down and grab a shower) following our bumpy ten-hour flight before heading off to taste some wines with local friends and have a casual dinner. (See "Eating Here Is Half The Fun".)

Day Two (Saturday the 27th) was jam packed right from the get-go.  Our group of ten (up four more people from last year!) ate a quick breakfast at our hotel and sped off with alacrity to our first official tasting of the trip at Thunevin. Here we tasted a dozen or so wines made by Jean-Luc Thunevin, the official self-proclaimed "bad boy" of Bordeaux. (Just a note: This guy is on his game for sure, currently making some of the best and most highly sought after wines in Bordeaux.) We started our visit with Jean-Luc by tasting through a few of his non-St Emilion wines, including Bellevue Tayac (Margaux), Clos de Beau Pere (Pomerol), and Thunevin-Calvet (Roussilan, Southern France).

We then headed to Jean-Luc's house in downtown St Emilion where we were received by his wife, Murielle. We were there to taste Valandraud (Thunevin's baby), which debuted in 1991 and recently has been on a tear, being one of the most consistently high scoring and sought after "garagiste" wines in St Emilion.  The property is a minuscule 2.7 hectares planted to 75% merlot with the remainder cabernet franc and a tiny bit of malbec. No expense is spared on this wines and it shows.  We also tried the 2009 Virginie de Valandraud (the 2nd wine of Valandraud) along with 2009 La Dominique (Thunevin consults since 2006) and 2009 Fleur Cardinale (maybe the best bang for the buck in Bordeaux). Last but not least, we tried the 2009 Valandraud, which was absolutely stunning.

I won't get into tasting notes quite yet but I was ultimately surprised to find that the 09s were (as reported) dense and concentrated yet fresh with all the stuffing (tannins, structure, length, color, fruit, and all the rest). Jean-Luc assured us that it was important not to over extract in 2009 because the wines will have extraction given the pedigree of the fruit itself. We will see over the next week who got it right and who dropped the ball. Stay tuned!