Many Thanks to Stephen Browett for his wine tasting report after the great SOUTHWOLD 2010 at Swan Hotel.
Stephen Browett: "Every January since the early 1980s, a group of British wine buyers has escaped to Southwold in Suffolk to spend three days tasting through the most recently released Bordeaux vintage at The Swan Hotel. The 20 tasters include several Masters of Wine, the wine buyers for Britain's leading wine merchants and distinguished wine writers":
Jancis Robinson MW(jancisrobinson.comand the Financial Times ), Neal Martin (the Wine Advocate) and Steven Spurrier (Decanter Magazine). I joined the group over 20 years ago as the youngest member (at the time) but I'm now one of the "old boys".
Stephen Browett:
"I always think of this appellation as producing wines that are a hypothetical blend of 50% Pomerol, 50% Pauillac. This seemed to be very much the case in 2010. The best wines here have the fabulous richness of the top Pomerols with the class, structure and breed of the Pauillacs and then a tarry, spicy Graves character on top of that.
Mission Haut-Brion : Absolute Star
Haut Brion also performed extremely well, of course
Leaving those two aside, My own top three were:
- 1- Domaine de Chevalier
- 2 - Pape Clément
- 3 - Smith Haut Lafitte
Domaine de Chevalier maintained its extraordinary record of being in the top two or three wines of the appellation every year since the mid 1990s. Great value too."
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