2014 Château Grand-Puy-Lacoste
Community Tasting Note
evold89 Likes this wine:
Monday, July 27, 2020 - Deep ruby, almost purple in colour.
At first this wine doesn’t resemble Paulliac nor Bordeaux.. it starts off with a bright aroma of red fruits, dominated mostly by red cherries. It gradually builds and after approximately 3 hours it had transformed magnificently. At 4 hours decant it shows much darker berries and classic Bordeaux characteristic.
Lovely juicy and cool blackberries and cassis dominate the nose. Some tobacco and smoke together with cedar, mint and graphite. Occasionally whiff of herbs.
The palate is slightly understated on the entry, but gains with air. It shows some of the lightness of some 2014’s, but gain depth and concentration with time. Medium bodied with quite fine tannin (the tannins showed a bit more after the decant). Feels kind of silky, but you can definitely feel that nice structure underneath. Lovely cisp acidity. Slightly gravelly mineral finish. Great length.
This is an elegant Grand-Puy-Lacoste with finesse. All very classic and elegant. Palate approachable for drinking now, but I would be inclined to give this another 4-5 years and drink over the next 20. Job well done in ‘14 by GPL! Looking forward to the rest of my bottles!
Score: 93+, with potential upside.
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3 comments have been posted
6 people found this helpful, do you? Yes - No / Report Issue (8,980 views)
Comment posted by vintage1949:
3/12/2021 3:36:00 AM - Greetings,
Looking back to when you wrote your tasting note do you still feel five years down the road this wine will be ready. A slight complicating factor-I only have this in magnums. Oh-and thanks for posting. Dave
Comment posted by evold89:
3/12/2021 11:08:00 PM - Depends if your question is if it is ready or if it deserves some additional years. I think the answer depends slightly on your preferences. If you do enjoy young Bordeaux and want to open it: The GPL is approachable now with appropriate decanting regime. If so I would probably give it at least 2-3 years and give it a good long decant 4+ hours.
If you are willing to wait (which would be the preffered option that will be rewarded):
A minimum of 5 years will probably do the regular bottle some justice. For comparison I have had the Domaine de Chevalier 2014 as well, which shows more classic 2014 "lightness" and which I believe will be ready at a slightly earlier stage (and that I just had recently and was quite forgiving).
Assuming you have decent cellaring temperature with not much volatility: If I had only two (?) of your magnums I would probably give the first one 7-10 years (so around its 15-20 year birthday - given that you like the qualities of a slightly aged bordeaux) and then reassess. If it develops as expected I would probably wait another 5+ years for the last one.. I think this will be drinking at peak somewhere around 2030-2040, and probably best at 2034-40, but thats just a wild guess..
Myself: I am planning on drinking no more than a bottle a year (probably 2 years between the first bottles), starting from around 2025. Given that I have 15 bottles of this I will probably check in on it in 3-5 years as well (depending on how the Domain de Chevalier 14 develops) to reassess the development and drinking plan. A "simple" Dalem from 2001 has been just beautiful in recent years. Cheers!
Comment posted by vintage1949:
3/13/2021 11:57:00 AM - Hi EVOLD89,
Wow thanks for such a detailed answer. I love your suggestions. FYI=My cellar temperature varies from 55 to 60. Dave