Community Tasting Note

Cailles wrote:

Wednesday, September 8, 2021 - 20 Vintages of Ausone (1986 - 2015): All wines tasted single blind. Ausone is a rare bird and hence, the term „once in a lifetime“ certainly applies to this tasting. A few oberservations: 1) Huge quality improvement in recent years: Only after 2005 I can see Ausone up there with the best Bordeauxs thanks to less oak, more depth and precision and a hightened elegance. 2) The high Cabernet Franc share in the blend (ever increasing) makes these wines quite unique, lighter and with more airiness and a darker fruit expression than most right banks. 3) The wines need a lot of time: Ausone is rather a late bloomer and does not provide as much early drinking fun as many of its right bank peers - especially the great vintages (05, 09, 10, 15). 4) The best wines with the highest scores were almost all off-vintages (a first for me). The highest scores went to 08, 06, 07, 14. These wines are weightless and show how great the big vintages will be once mature. Only the 05 was up there with the off-vintages. 5) Wine of the night and my best off-vintage Bordeaux ever was the 2008 (rated 98 pts).

TN: I have had this wine a year ago and it was quite disappointing, showing signs of oxidation and too much alcohol. This bottle again showed alcohol on the nose and at first there was little hope for a better experience. With some time and a lot of swirling, some stinky notes disappeared and underneath, a singular fresh blueberry fruit core took the centre stage. Overall, it didn‘t show that complex but nicely precise. The tannin structure is fine and velvety, there is not too much weight and a good acidity but again the balance is not perfect as there are some alcohol notes. In the best moments the palate was drinking on a 95+ pts level but overall not a great experience. I‘m not sure if this 2010 just needs a lot of decanting or a lot of time in the cellar or if it‘s just not a success. Anyway, I wouldn‘t be tempted to buy it.

Decanting: Not decanted. I guess a long decant could have changed things.

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