Community Tasting Note

Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - Bordeaux 2000 - 20 Years On - 48 Reds: All tasted blind, not decanted. Observations: 1) It´s a good vintage but not on par with more recent great vintages like 09/10/15/16. Why? A smaller group of top wines reaching lower highs and in general a tad less depth, purity and finesse. 2) Right bank is ready, the left bank still needs time to integrate and open up. 3) Not much tertiary aromas yet - peak drinking window at least 10 years away for most wines. 4) 2000 is a bit a cooler vintage which is great for the right bank (not too much ripeness). 5) Winners? Pomerol with the highest ratings. Le Pin (97+ pts) leading the pack for me (narrowly beating the consensus winner Pavie (97 pts).

More information, top and worst 10 lists, appellation rankings, out- and underperformer from five participants in the story link. As always, in such tastings (lots of wines, not a lot of time per wine, not decanted) the ranking of wines/appellations might be more informative than the scores.

TN: This wine performed exceptionally well in our group (3rd overall rank and 95.6 average score) but didn’t reach the same heights in my book. At first I found it very ripe, extracted and alcoholic (harsh but not so far off description of basically all the Gazin’s I’ve tasted in the past few years) but with time the wine calmed down revealing ripe dark fruit, less intrusive alcohol, tobacco, cola and earthy notes on the nose. Very light and soft with just some slightly angular tannins on the palate with a good freshness and lots of red fruits, toasty notes and some earthy notes and a medium+ finish driven by sweet red fruits. At first 88pts at best and in the end rather 93-94pts.

Decanting: A short 30-60mins decant should do the job.

Group average: 95.6 pts
Group rank: 3rd out of 48