Assessing the September releases plus final 21 wines tasted including Y d’Yquem

Jane Anson evaluates the success of this year's 'September releases' entering the market via Bordeaux's famous distribution network and tastes a further 21 wines including Château d'Yquem's dry white plus latest offerings from Inglenook, L'Aventure, Bryant Estate, Clos Apalta and Two Hands.

By Jane Anson

Last updated 16 October 2020 In Tastings

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Chateau d'Yqueum, Place de Bordeaux wines — Credit: Per Karlsson, BKWine 2 / Alamy Stock Photo

(Image credit: Per Karlsson, BKWine 2 / Alamy Stock Photo)

Looking back on a month of international wines on the Place de Bordeaux, the feedback that I have on sales is that they were solid but subdued for all but the most high profile names. Not surprising against the backdrop of increasing global economic uncertainty but there seems no question that this is now a yearly event in the Bordeaux calendar that is not going anywhere.

‘Fine wine is a global category. The same people who are buying the best wines of Bordeaux are also buying the best wines of Napa, Australia, Italy, Chile. The bottles will be found on the same wine lists, and talked about by the same sommeliers and consumers. It makes sense that the distribution channels recognise that fact. Gathering these iconic wines together offers easier access for consumers, and easier access for the trade, that previously could source only through exclusive sales channels’.

It’s been a popular subject. This month alone I have discussed the new arrivals on the Place with the brilliant journalist Elaine Chukkan Brown for a California Wine Institute seminar, and with the equally brilliant author and wine specialist Andrew Caillard MW for Treasury Wine Estates in Australia, specifically for the club members of Wynns Coonawarra Estate, whose John Riddoch bottling has made its debut in Bordeaux this year.

Both conversations reminded me of a pleasing symmetry to selling the great Cabernets through the Place de Bordeaux. We think of Bordeaux as the home of Cabernet Sauvignon, and almost certainly it first stirred into life in the vineyards here in the 1700s as a natural cross of Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc. But although Cabernet began to be gather popularity in the late 18th century, its real growth occurred in 19th century Bordeaux, and even at the time of the 1855 classification it was just one of a range of red grapes used in the famous Médoc châteaux.

There are clear parallels with Cabernet’s growth in both Australia and California during the same years. It first arrived in Australia in 1832 (making its way to John Riddoch in 1893, as discussed in Caillard’s book Imagining Coonawarra), and almost certainly made its way to California just one year later in 1833, when Bordeaux native Jean Louis Vignes established the area’s first commercial vineyard.

In fact Cabernet may even have arrived in America three decades earlier, as we have records of William Lee, the American consul in Bordeaux in the early 19th century, sending 4,500 vine cuttings of Lafite, Margaux and Haut-Brion to the Pennsylvania Vineyard Company in 1805 in an attempt to ensure its new planting project was a success. The idea of the Cabernet Sauvignon getting a foothold and slowly growing in popularity in all three locations at the same time somehow makes it all the more fitting that the descendants of those early grapes are making their way back to Bordeaux as equal partners.

One of the more unusual whites of Napa joined it, Inglenook’s Blancaneaux, a blend of Viognier, Marsanne and Roussanne which seems to me to be a combination with brilliant potential for the soils and climate of the region. Overall it underlined again, as the previous Inglenooks did earlier in the month, that the Place de Bordeaux is extremely lucky to have access to these wines. Clos Apalta, on the Place since 2012, was similarly successful, as were the extra L’Aventure wines that rounded out the range I had tasted through last month.

I was less convinced by the Two Hands wines from Barossa, which I tasted through a mini horizontal. The clear highlight, and a truly excellent bottle, came with the Ares 100% Shiraz bottling, nuanced and spicy and full of well-juiced muscle. More consistent, and in fact totally thrilling in many instances, were the wines from Bryant Estate in Napa, tasted over the 2016 and 2017 vintages. These are all small batch bottlings at the upper end of the price scale, but are consistently impressive. The vines are located in three different areas around the valley with the focus on Pritchard Hill.

The 2017 vintage of Bryant Estate was 90% picked just before that year’s fires, with any grapes left at that point not used in the wine, and the vineyard has again been threatened this year by the Hennessy Fire. From what I understand, although the vineyard was largely undamaged, Bryant has joined most of the wineries on Pritchard Hill in announcing that it will not be making a 2020 vintage due to fears over smoke taint. All in all providing a sober reminder that these wines are precious in many different ways.

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Jane Anson was Decanter’s Bordeaux correspondent until 2021 and has lived in the region since 2003. She writes a monthly wine column for Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, and is the author of Bordeaux Legends: The 1855 First Growth Wines (also published in French as Elixirs). In addition, she has contributed to the Michelin guide to the Wine Regions of France and was the Bordeaux and Southwest France author of The Wine Opus and 1000 Great Wines That Won’t Cost a Fortune. An accredited wine teacher at the Bordeaux École du Vin, Anson holds a masters in publishing from University College London, and a tasting diploma from the Bordeaux faculty of oenology.

Roederer awards 2016: International Feature Writer of the Year

Assessing the September releases plus final 21 wines tasted including Y d’Yquem

Scroll down for Jane Anson’s new ‘September releases’ tasting notes and scores

September Releases: The full list

See Jane Anson’s new ‘September releases’ tasting notes and scores

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