May 4, 2024 - Double decanted with a charcuterie lunch. Lovely nose of fruit, cedar, and herbs. On the palate, gentle blackberries, oak, herbs, minerals, and a dry acid finish, with a touch of black pepper. Very smooth.
March 11, 2024 - I thought it was great - a dusty neglected bottle in a part wine and part everything else store in CO so was curious if it would amount to anything but everyone love it. Stood up well to other wines we were drinking.
February 5, 2024 - Tasted over several hours of decanting a month or so ago. Fairly ungiving, quite frankly, not much joy. Some might call it structured, etc. I am not convinced it's meant to be singing, period.
January 21, 2024 - WB Dinner in Santa Cruz (Home Soquel): What a velvety, rich, and seductive palette. Concentrated but tempered by eucalyptus.
January 17, 2024 - No age on rim - needed 2 hours to open - cedar wood and blackcurrants with even a hint of violets - end palate fabulous with smokey tar and spices, tannins ripening. May need more age in bottle but v pleasant at the moment. En primeur prices for 2010 were almost as crazy as 2009, so it’s not great vfm.
January 7, 2024 - Well,l I haven't drunk this with smoked beetroot (in fact, I have never heard of smoked beetroot). My feelings are do not let food interfere with wine. Give the smoked beetroot a miss; try a water cracker instead.
BC up to scratch again. What a fine wine, and so consistent. The smoky ethereality of Saint Julien, dark smoldering fruit, and all held together through a pointed structure.
mt
December 29, 2023 - Rating was on night 2 - needed the time to open and soften a little. Dark, rounded fruit with strong tannic & acidic structure to carry it. Tasty, with a decade or two to go. Give it plenty of air if drinking now.
November 24, 2023 - Another consistent example at Arpège, full of boysenberry, sour black cherry, rose, and a little fresh cedar. Big, open, deep, lovely nose. Drunk with food from the outset there’s no sensation of alcohol on the palate - and I should add that this is as (or more) glorious with smoked beetroot as it is with a more traditional pairing of rack of lamb with oyster sauce.
November 14, 2023 - How different from the 2009 the 2010 Branaire is - here the fruit profile is comprised by cassis, plum, and boysenberry rather than red fruit. Where the 2009 is full of soft, caressing volume, the 2010 is intense and structured. I have the same small quibble with both initially; the alcohol seems just a bit out of proportion to the other elements at the outset, yet in the case of the 2010 this becomes inconspicuous as the fruit expands with several hours in the decanter. Perhaps the finish helps to adjudicate with an impressively long, black and purple-fruited, pencilly finish. Confidence is reinforced by its performance 12 hours later: this has expanded into a relatively harmonious whole without heat. Maybe 93 points is a hair too low; time will tell. Drinking from ~2028.
November 3, 2023 - Grand Jury du Vin - Republic of Georgia; 11/1/2023-11/9/2023 (Republic of Georgia then stopover in Paris and Dijon): Wine 19 – Lead pencil, cassis, a bit simple.
Afterthought – I smelled this twice. I found it not at the same level as the others, so I didn’t spend too much time revisiting.