I have been lured into the world of wine about 3 years ago from now but as I am not much of a daily drinker I'd say I roughly drunk about 20 bottles a year. Which does sound like a hefty amount as I write it down into words…. What I'm trying to say is that I acknowledge that I may have jumped certain experiences that avid wine lovers might view as essential along the way.
I started with new zealand sauvignon blancs to pinot noirs, then tried some right bank wines up to around 150 dollars. After that I fell in love with super tuscan wines after trying both the 3rd and 2nd wines of ornellaia. As I heard that blind testers have a pretty difficult time differentiating super tuscan/bordeaux wines, I wanted to try out the vast wines of bordeaux.
After looking at different wine based content I learnt that there were wines that had a somewhat agreed consensus of being super second growths. Taking a closer look at different tasting notes, the two wines that I wanted to try out were Cos d'estournel and Pontet Canet.
I was able to get a 17' Pontet Canet for a reasonable price near where I lived so I decided to try what a young bordeaux would feel like. I heard that bordeaux wines tend to require decades of time so I was aware of the wines not being in the right window so to speak. I decided to decant the wine for 2~3 hours as I felt that the alcohol didn't really feel cohesive with the overall flavor.
I had planned to drink it with a friend of mine and we were so impressed by the plum, cassis scent that the wine gave off in the decantor.
Here is where it fell apart for me unfortunately…
As we poured the wine into our glass, the smell of cassis immediately disappeared and it tasted and smelt of even stronger alcohol that covered any other taste that the wine may have had. We switched to two other glasses with the same result so we decided to leave it until we as novices thought to be ready.
We ended up drinking it after 6 hours since we started decanting and to be honest struggled to even finish the bottle between the two of us. I could only describe it as a strongly alcoholic, very strong merlot after-taste that made it very hard to swallow(weird as it isn't the major grape varietal). The one thing I did notice was a layer to the taste but except for that I was left incredibly disappointed as I really didnt taste anything noticeable or enjoyable at all. I seriously considered quitting drinking wine altogether if this was a taste that was a normality, pondering whether it truely is an acquired taste, and whether I skipped some crucial steps on learning how to enjoy this style of wine.
After what became a sour evening, I wanted to know what other people's experience was like and also to seek for help… I thought describing my current situation could be somewhat useful for someone else to provide me with some advices.
I have mainly 3 questions that I would like to ask.
Do people generally like bordeaux wines if they like super tuscan wines?
Was I wrong to decant the wines, or worse should I have not tasted a young bordeaux in the first place?
Is there a possibility that my wine had a problem? I had 2 cork taint bottles before but this one didn't resemble the previous two. Which made me very perplexed because I was unable to enjoy the wine at all
Thank you for reading a novice's post and I would appreciate it a lot if you could share your thoughts. I'm willing to learn!! (I really do hope that my particular bottle was just a spoilt one)
by Humble-Reporter-9297
16 Comments
Decanted for 6 hours
Notes of cassis, plums
Strong merlot after-taste with volatile acidity
2017 was not the best vintage. Also still very young.
2017 was not great unfortunately- I would look for some 15’s
6 hours is too much. Pontet canet 2017 should have low abv so the high alc you experienced might point to some flawed bottle.
To be fair, I did a PC vertical a while back and 2017 was the worst performing vintage. Very unremarkable.
This sounds like a textbook drank-too-young experience to be honest. Some people say there’s a Bordeaux “dumb phase” that tends to last from 5-15 years of age, but regardless of the mythology behind it, full bodied and ripe wines sometimes just come across this way in youth, lacking in aromatics , not really being very expressive, being dominated by tannins, and structurally disjointed.
Your notes don’t sound like the wine was faulted but it’s possible. You were definitely in the right to decant this bottle, but the real lesson is that when you get into wines like this, it’s rare that every experience is the same. Bottle variation exists, sometimes wines show better or worse for various reasons. Perhaps it was a root day? (Only semi serious, please don’t jump down my throat)
I think you may not have decanted enough. Pontet and Cos are built for long-term cellaring and are powerful wines, so even 6 hours may not be enough. I would open it early in the am, leave it breathing in the bottle all day until late afternoon. then taste a bit and see if it needs a decant. At 8 years they are typically in a closed phase, which could also contribute. right now the alcohol level (14-15%?) is overpowering the fruit on the palate. Sometimes I’ll try a glass, and if it’s like you describe, close the bottle and put it back in the cellar and try again the following day and see how it evolves
I would look for some makers that are drinkable a little younger. Gloria, Malartic Lagraviere, Meyney, Labegorce, Tronquoy Lalande, Langoa Barton – 4th growth (one of my fave), Cantemerle, or some of the 2nd wines from major chateaus like Le Petit Lion de Cases, La Dame du Montrose, La Croix du Beaucaillou. That first group should be findable under 50, the second group under 75.
1. They’re similar but not quite the same. Super Tuscans will be more alcoholic and fruitier (warmer and sunnier region than Bordeaux) and do not need as much age, so it’s more approachable, generally speaking. If anything, I’d say Super Tuscans are closer to Napa wines than Bordeaux, but I guess today you can also find some very ripe wines coming out of Bordeaux, especially right bank. It comes down to personal preference, but good wine is good wine.
2. Decanting was fine and definitely good for a young classified growth. I do think you opened it too early though. Young Bordeaux is often more punishing than it is enjoyable, much like Barolo.
3. Your bottle sounded like it’s shutdown or potentially even mildly corked. It’s hard to say really without being there, but you can use CellarTracker to see when a wine is in a good drinking window vs. when it’s shutdown.
PC is not a super second growth, it got some strong points in the reviews for most vintages younger than 2005.
In a blind 10 years ago I called 2005 PC a drinks like Mouton Wine, it was noticeable better than 2005 Montrose for example.
Same blind pairing a year ago and the Montrose blew the PC out of the water, I was extremely disappointed in my own capability of estimating wines potential!
The verdict isn’t out yet on how good these are going to be within their optimal drinking window.
Bad vintages of top Bordeaux are some of the worst value wines in the world. Next time ask your local shop for the bangers. If you are happy to spend a third of what pc17 costs, you can be drinking Taurasi, elite Southern hemisphere red blends, priorat, Monpeyroux, Duoro etc etc that offer incredible value.
Was it still tannic? As they age the tannins break down giving a vanilla-like flavor.
Professional here,
I’ve had this bottle twice and I think youre perfectly justified in not enjoying it as much as the price tag may have represented.
2017 was not a very good year in Bordeaux. And this wine specifically felt light and lacking in concentration in both experiences I’ve had within.
It might be this lack of concentration that is causing you to fixate on alcohol. I’m not totally sure what you mean by “merlot taste” but I would usually refrain from adding a pejorative to a specific grape (merlot, chardonnay, Riesling….it’s a common thing).
Best advice I can give you going forward is to look for better vintages. 2015-2010 2009 are all extremely good. 2018, 2020 2014 are all serviceable.
One last note is that this producer is a biodynamic one. This can be kind of a challenging way of farming for Bordeaux given a rather wet growing season.
What temperature were you drinking this wine after you decanted? I would consume young bordeaux between 60-65F, 16-18C. If you left the wine out at room temperature in the summer the extra warmth will highlight the alcohol and ruin the balance of the wine. Agree with everyone else that the wine may have been faulty and was certainly too young and not the best vintage, but correcting the serving temperature may have fixed your issues.
1. Yes they tend to like both. It’s similar to enjoying a genre of music. You tend to like multiple artists in a genre.
2. You weren’t wrong to open it. Nor were you wrong to decant it. 2017 wasn’t the best vintage so that did you no favors, but honestly the lesson here is sometimes it’s better to quit while you can. By that, I refer to just pouring the wine back into the bottle, putting some sort of cork (those rubber stoppers will work fine in the short term) on it, and coming back to it the following day.
Wine is a fluid product. Sometimes we change our perceptions of a wine and can grow to love one over an evening. On many occasions the wine wants to come together on its own time. Many times I’ve had a wine that was better on day 2 after a night close and in the fridge. It’s annoying but that’s how it goes sometimes.
3. Unlikely that the wine was at fault. Doesn’t sound like it was even if it didn’t come together.
I’m not sure where you’re based but aged Bordeaux is pretty easy to acquire. You have to pay more up front of course. Instead of jumping to something like Pontet Canet, start with some lesser Chateaux to understand the style first. Listrac is one of my favorite affordable communes. Second-wines from the bigger names are also typically made to be enjoyed younger than the grand vin.
I love Ponte-Canet but it’s impenetrable in youth. Even the 2010 still drinks incredibly young. Honestly with a ‘17 I probably would have decanted overnight. Good Bordeaux is magic, probably nothing I love more in the world, but it can be a finicky style.
I had the same vintage not long ago and I concluded that it was too young and tight.
A lot of people are talking about drinking the wine too young which is certainly possible but 8 years of age isn’t bad. The 2016 is very drinkable. I think it could also just be a matter of taste. There was a big switch in wine making philosophy in 2014 towards the more modern taste of higher alcohal big bodied reds in ponet can’t which really worked for them, with their first 100 point wine I believe in 2016. I recently did a vertical of their wines and I much prefer their older vintages because of their more restrained style. I’m not as big a fan of their modern shift, although I did still enjoy them, but maybe try some of the older stuff. Young can still find them around for sometimes less that modern vintages because they didn’t score as well. The 04 and 07 are really great.