Laroze 2008 Primeurs (16)

Guy Meslin continues to develop quality, offering us his 2008 that has the same lineage as the 2005 and 2003.
The bouquet is intense and pretty. The nose is distinctively fruity with floral and creamy undertones. It strokes the palate, then becomes silky and pulpy, while taking on size in the middle. It goes on with heaps of flavour and a hint of very ripe raspberry. It really builds up then finishes long, smooth and quite complex. It has lovely aromatic and tannic layers on the palate, without any harshness in the least.
The estate was hit by hail on 28 July, which made the fruit very irregular, even on the same bunch. M. Meslin told me he spent €85,000 to select the best grapes, and for the first time, 15% of the wine was sold off as generic. The final yield was 28 hectolitres per hectare. Blend: 80% Merlot and 20% Cabernet Franc. Alcohol content: 13.2°.
Jean-Marc Quarin www.quarin.com

(fifth best score of the Grands Crus Classés. I think that this score should be higher considering the quality of the comment)GM.

Laroze 2008 Primeurs (87/90)

Grape, blackberry and tare aromas follow through a meduim body, with firm tannins and a solid finish. A compact wine.
(I can't really recognise Laroze 2008 in this comment...)GM.
James Suckling (USA)

Chateau Laroze 2006 (90+)

An outstanding Laroze that’s showing even better now that it’s bottled ! It boasts creamy plum aromas intermingled with crème de cassis and broad liquefied-mineral notes, as well as an opaque plum-ruby color. Superb intensity, a medium to full-body, finessed, and deeply penetrating with plum/berry flavour and a seamless finish. It could further improve from here given its delicious complexity of flavor. One should not overlook this effort.

Alan Duran (February 2009)

Chateau Laroze 2007 (86-87+)

The tender and ripe Laroze delivers sweet plum notes intermixed with cherry, pebble, and notions of crème de cassis aromas. Opaque ruby in color, medium-bodied, plum infused, and low in acidity. It looks set to be a charming vintage to cellar and consume over the next 12-15 years.

Alan Duran (February 2009)

The hail on july 28th 2008

A quick look back on this climate calamity which devastated 30% of the vineyard. It damaged one side of the bunches and disturbed the normal maturation of a certain quantity of berries which were still intact. It was important to be able to seperate theses berries in different vats. So at the end of august, at a time where we had no certitude on the issu of this vintage except that august was cooler than usually, and the financial markets where pointing down, I decided to invest 85 000€ in the system to sort out the berries.
This system can seperate the berries which are less matured than the others by a very simple and clever density control of each berry. The result in terms of quality of work was worth the money we put in.
This hail didn't affect too much the global yield but forced us to declassify 15% of the wine produced in basic Saint-Emilion instead of Grand Cru Classé.
So the 4100 litres of wine produced by hectare gave only 2800 litres of Grand Cru Classé.
This decision saved the quality of Laroze 2008 and will improve it in the future vintages.

In fact, this decision which I basically had no choice about, once the weather had done its damage, and which forced me to take out a loan in the middle of violent stock market turbulence, had a positive impact on the quality of the harvest, not only because it totally erased the effects of the hailstorm, but also by refining our wine’s taste profile.
I expect this enhancement in quality to be confirmed in future vintages.
So the moral is, if you believe in the quality potential of your terroir, and your fundamental guideline is that every bottle of Laroze must be quite simply delicious, you take the right decisions even in a hostile economic context!
And that’s why I have a bone to pick with the cork suppliers, the majority of whom are incapable of doing what is necessary – but that’s another story, so see the article below.

Cork quality

We are currently ordering our dry materials ready for bottling, so we often discuss the perennial subject of corks, their quality and price and the fact that despite all the precautions we take with our suppliers, anomalies of taste and aroma are always attributable to them on one occasion or another. And this of course is true for all wines, whatever their price, that use natural corks.
When a wine is corked or its tannins are dry and its fruit has withered, no drinker thinks of complaining to the cork supplier, who in fact is fully responsible. The scapegoat is always the chateau and the brand’s reputation always suffers the consequences.
There are more and more articles by professionals and connoisseurs on this subject, because it is no longer acceptable in this era of traceability that all the work carried out to make a great bottle of wine is polluted by a defective stopper.
Attitudes are evolving, gradually technical cork-based closures are being developed and increasingly used – not yet for Bordeaux fine wines – but if the cork suppliers do not solve the problem fast, an irreversible decision could be taken in the next ten years, or even less.
I find it completely intolerable and unacceptable that our work is made a laughing stock, even if the number of instances remains very minimal, because each and every bottle must be faultless and every consumer should be allowed to enjoy the best of what the wine has to offer.

After all, that’s what she or he pays for.

The taste of Laroze 2007

I’m not sure I’m the least well-placed to discuss this, but in any case up to today, I am one of the few to have any information on the subject, because the wine has not been distributed yet, so I can “just do it” without any particular hang-ups.
If any wine has sex-appeal, this one does. All the ingredients are melded and in place. The wood is nicely blended in and quite flattering, and nicely sets off the very fresh fruity hints. The tannins are not especially powerful, but contribute sheer silk and velvet.
The finish prolongs all this with an emphasis on the aromatic freshness. This wine will be very enjoyable soon, but could also age nicely in a good cellar.

You shouldn’t miss this vintage, because it is really exceptional value and enjoyable taste for money, and has benefited from the Laroze expertise, which never ceases to grow.