“If you snooze you lose” is a favourite saying of Jamie Strutt’s and he has certainly beaten me to the mark on the blog front! As the happy provider of the magnum of 1995 Clos des Papes I thought I had the most perfect Christmas blog wine, only to be told by Jamie “Too late, I have already blogged it…” so instead my choice is a wine kindly donated by him for our seaside lunch, 1996 Ch Grand Puy Lacoste, Pauillac.
1996 has long been one of my favourite vintages, as a relatively young buyer it was the first really great Medoc vintage I tasted En Primeur and it is wonderful to see these wines entering their prime and our optimism totally justified. Looking back on my primeur tasting notes I gave it a whopping 17 out of 20 quoting its fabulous balance and purity of fruit and long firm Pauillac intensity. 15 years later all these characteristics are absolutely there but further enhanced by new levels of complexity only be achieved through aging.
This is GPL at its best and highlights why the wines of proprietor Francois-Xavier Borie are very much an absolute favourite of all of ours at Goedhuis & Co. What is even better is that Jamie has a few more bottles left in his cellar….