I have just had the pleasure of wallowing in the best bordeaux vintage I will probably ever taste: 2016. It’s more consistent than 2015, as tannic as 2010 but with riper tannins, much more precise than 2009, and just more everything than most vintages.
Yes, I tasted the vintage out of barrel during the en primeur campaign back in spring 2017 but that was when the wines were only a few months old. And en primeur samples give only the most approximate idea of what the wines will eventually be like.
I much prefer the annual Southwold-on-Thames assessment of bordeaux vintages when they are three-and-a-bit years old and have settled down in bottle. The samples are kindly donated by the châteaux and driven across the Channel by veteran bordeaux wine merchant Bill Blatch who supervises the three-day blind tasting at fine wine traders Farr Vintners’ Thames-side offices in Wandsworth. Attended by about 20 journalists and merchants, it was originally held every January in Southwold. Hence the name.