Garagiste 2002 Bordeaux Tasting

Garagiste Warehouse, Seattle, WA
Tasted Saturday, July 16, 2005 by Wusman with 1,431 views

Introduction

The wines were decanted ~2hrs prior to the tasting and poured back into bottle. All wines were tasted semi-blind (list of 21 possible wines handed out at the beginning of the tasting) in random order. Pours were ~1oz, but ample opportunity to return to wines you were unsure about. People were asked to take notes and rank their top 5 wines of the tasting. Bread, cheese and water were all provided for people to palate clense. At the end of the tasting the wines were placed in rank order based on votes.

Flight 1 (1 Note)

As people were coming into the warehouse, this lovely white was poured.

Flight 2 (16 Notes)

After about 30 min we moved on to the reds.

  • 2002 Château Palmer 92 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Margaux

    Mid-heavy purple. Nose full of coffee, chocolate, and some maraschino cherries. I thought for sure that this was going to be a merlot based wine and was surprised to find out that it was Palmer. The palate showed more cab dominated features with cassis and spice. My #4 of the night.

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  • 2002 Château Lafite Rothschild 93 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac

    Very dark purple. Classic nose of Pauillac. Graphite, earth, cassis. Very full on the mouth, powerful flavors of dark fruits that seem to be integrated well. Lovely persistent finish. Overall one of the most balanced wines of the evening. Correctly guessed as a Pauillac. Wish I had these in the cellar. My #3 of the night.

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  • 2002 Vieux Château Certan 86 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Libournais, Pomerol

    Lighter purple color, but still dark. Nose of sweet, dark berries. Touch of vanilla as well. Palate of flowers, blackberry and cassis. Not as mouth filling as some of the other wines and the finish seemed a bit shorter. Tannins were in the mild range, somewhat atypical for the vintage.

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  • 2002 Château Montrose 87 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Estèphe

    Dark purple in the glass. Somewhat closed nose at the start of the night. I never returned to the wine to see if it had opened up at all. I found the nose a bit vegetal smelling of green peppers. Palate dominated by cassis. Tannins present, but sort of mid range. Nice wine, but nothing special.

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  • 2002 Château Cos d'Estournel 92 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Estèphe

    Very dark in glass. Nose somewhat closed, but seemed to open a bit after 2-3 hrs into the event after revisiting later. Aromas of black fruits, coffee, graphite, cedar. Palate had sort of a wonderful spicy blackberry and cassis. Moderate tannins overall. Quite nice. My #5 overall.

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  • 2002 Château Léoville Barton 89 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Julien

    Very dark purple. Nose full of graphite and cedar, some smoke, menthol? Palate with full mouth feel and loads of cassis. A bit more acidity noticible on this wine. Finish a little shorter than some of the others. Nice, but nothing spectacular.

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  • 2002 Château Léoville Las Cases 88 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Julien

    One of the darkest purple wines at the tasting. Nose totally closed. I was unable to get much out of this wine at all. Totally unsatisfied after learning what the wine was. There was a bit of cassis, but not at all expressive. Nice cedar and floral note did come through. Cassis, blackberry, earth on the palate. Very tannic finish. Not astringent, but drying. Unfortunately not impressed.

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  • 2002 Château Pape Clément 94 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Graves, Pessac-Léognan

    Also very dark. Seems to be a theme with the 2002s. This wine was very open, wonderfully expressive nose of sweet tobacco, flowers, cedar. Mouthcoating texture with smooth fruit forward blackberries, mushrooms, and spice. Moderate tannins. Nicely balanced. I need to head out and add this into the cellar! My #2 of the night.

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  • 2002 Château Lynch-Bages 89 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac

    Mid purple range. Also opened up nicely during the tasting. Some woody notes, no vegetal aromas noted here. Strong scents of berries which continue onto the palate is there tobacco here? Moderate tannins. Good wine, not the best of the group though.

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  • 2002 Château Haut-Brion 90 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Graves, Pessac-Léognan

    Color not noted. Nose very nice here. Earthy tobacco characteristics. Palate with cassis, cinnamon, blackberry. A touch of olive and green pepper as well, but in a good way without being vegetal. Mild tannins. Quality wine, but not the best of the tasting as well.

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  • 2002 Château Cheval Blanc 87 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Libournais, St. Émilion Grand Cru

    Dark purple without aging. Nose somewhat closed. A touch of medicine both on the nose and palate, but also some coffee, sweet tar. The midpalate seemed a bit hollow, but the persistent finish seemed to make up for it a bit. Not my favorite.

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  • 2002 Château Latour Grand Vin 95 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac

    Black, already throwing sediment. Very expansive nose which was singing during the tasting. Notes of earth, graphite, cedar, blackberry. Sweet cassis and berries on the palate that were silky smooth. Everything culminating into a persistent finish with integrated tannins. This is tannic, but balanced well with the fruit. Should last a long time. Correctly predicted as lafite or latour. Too good for anything else. My WOTN.

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  • 2002 Osoyoos Larose Le Grand Vin 90 Points

    Canada, British Columbia, Okanagan Valley, Okanagan Valley VQA

    Also dark purple without any age. Nose different than any other wine here. Some green pepper and olive there? Coffee and leather on the palate. Moderate lasting finish with nice sweet tannins. Is this a california cab? Correctly suspected that this was probably not bordeaux.

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  • 2002 Château Mouton Rothschild 88 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac

    Deep, dark purple. Also a bit closed on the nose. Was able to coax out a bit of cedar which was also present on the palate. More acidic than many of the other wines tonight. Seemed to be a bit of fruit lacking throughout the palate. Finishing with some bitter tannin.

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  • 2002 Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande 88 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac

    Deep purple. Marachino cherries on nose? Some graphite and cedar as well. The palate showed dark fruits initially, but then transitioned to somewhat green, vegetal tastes. Seemed to be the most tannic of the wines present. Sad to see this was the PL.

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  • 2002 Château Margaux 90 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Margaux

    Purple to the eye. Nose of mineral, cedar, tobacco to me as well. Palate with dark fruts, plums, earth, but seemed to be a bit hollow with fruit tapering off prior to the finish. Modarate tannins. The first wine that I drank and probably poorly represented by this note.

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Closing

Overall, this is a vintage with considerable depth of color and moderate to high tannins. The wines were on the whole very primary but good to great. Was sad to see a few of the wines that I own not perform as well as I would like, but I can always blame that on youth. A few of the wines stood above the rest. Most everyone was surprised by the performance of the Osoyoos Larose. It was a nice wine, but clearly stood out a bit, but for its price a good deal.

Group ranking:
WOTN - Pape clement
#2 Mouton
#3 Latour
#4 Osoyoos Larose
#5 Palmer

My overall ranking:
WOTN: Latour
#2 - Pape clement
#3 - Lafite
#4 - Palmer
#5 - Cos d'estournel

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