WTN: Chateau Talbot 2006

2006 Château Talbot (France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Julien)

Firm with dense fruit and fine, chewey, iron tannins. Blood, berry, and some chocolate/coffee notes. Long mineral finish and a bit of acid. This should mature well with enough fruit to make it enjoyable but not as big as some other recent vintages. That said, it's a bit monolithic.
B-

[David M. Bueker]

I am having a hard time reconciling your note with your letter grade. Perhaps if you used (B-) it might make more sense as you seem to indicate a wine that should round more into form with time.

My apologies. Here is the decoder ring

Rating Scale
A - This wine is great!
     +Oh my god!  Nothing can be this good!  But it is!
      Magnificent, complete, glorious
     -This is all I can ask for in a wine
B - This wine is good!
     +This wine is really good!
      This wine is quite good!
     -This wine is pretty good
C - This is wine!
     +This wine is ok
      This wine is drinkable
     -This wine is flawed
D - Is this wine?!
     +Wow, did they mean it to taste like this?
      They couldn't possibly have meant it to taste like this
     -Ick, yuck, phooey!

Credit to Jay Miller. The other one. The real one.

[David M. Bueker]

Ok that makes more sense!

I have rarely encountered a Talbot that was more than "pretty good" myself.

The 1986 is phenomenal. I rated it A/A- at a 1986 horizontal a few years ago. The 1982 is quite good too.

[David M. Bueker]

Sadly I have not had a chance to drink either of those vintages.

Disagreeing to some extent on the 2006, for this is a wine that needs time before it will show its best. As to Talbot in general, a chateau that sometimes rises above…. Following are several tasting notes

Best
Rogov

Chateau Talbot, St.-Julien, 2006: Showing even better than at barrel tastings. Full-bodied, with gripping tannins and spicy wood influences needing time to integrate but showing fine structure and balance considering the vintage. Opens to reveal traditional blackcurrant, wild berry and bitter citrus peel, those supported nicely by notes of sweetened chewing tobacco and espresso coffee. Give this one time for its elements to come together. Best 2014-2028. Score 90. (Re-tasted twice with consistent notes 27 and 29 May 2009)


Chateau Talbot, St.-Julien, 2005: Showing every bit as well as during barrel tastings. Full-bodied, with soft tannins integrating beautifully with spicy wood and opening to show black currants, blackberries and minerals on first attack, those yielding nicely to red berries, fresh herbs and generous hints of spring flowers. Long, broad and deep. Approachable even now but best only from 2015-2035, perhaps longer. Score 93. (Tasted 26 Mar 2008)

Chateau Talbot, St.-Julien, 1990: Medium- to full-bodied, deep ruby colored, with tannins now integrating nicely with cedar wood, and generous raspberries, black cherries and currant fruits. Elegant and rich, much as tasted when the wine was first released but with a now extended drinking window. Drink now-2012. Score 95. (Re-tasted 8 Mar 2001)

Chateau Talbot, St.-Julien, 1986: A surprise from Talbot, fuller-bodied, more intense and concentrated than is usual. All of which is just fine though, for the wine opens beautifully in the glass, revealing a generous array of red berries, red currants and dark chocolate notes. Full-bodied, with once firm tannins now nicely settled in to highlight the fruits and spicy wood. Drink now-2014. Score 92. (Re-tasted 8 Mar 2001)

Cheateau Talbot, St. Julien, 1959: Celebrating its 40th year now and doing very nicely indeed, thank you. Medium dark ruby towards royal purple, full-bodied, with generous tannins still here, but those now soft and gently mouthcoating. Opens with spring flowers and cassis, those yielding to black cherries and chocolate and, on the long finish appealing herbal, earthy overtones. Drink now-2009. Score 90. (Re-tasted 10 Oct 1999)

This is rank infanticide.

To expect a 3 year old wine to show anything like it may eventually show in a decade or 3 is to have unrealistic expectations.

Thanks for the early note, though. Hope it wasn't your own bottle you had to open.

Agree about the 1986 - just getting into drinking window 23 years on. The 82 is a better bet right now - at peak.

I like to try new Bordeaux as they are released so that I can get a feel for the vintage before they totally go to sleep. I buy whatever I can find locally in half bottle every summer/fall for this purpose. I usually get maybe 10, nothing too expensive, I think Talbot is among the better ones I found this year. My tasting group also gets together in the fall/winter for a horizontal of the new vintage, usually higher tier wines.

I don't have unrealistic expectations about the experience. I expect to be tasting very very young wine and I find it very interesting.

tasting group also gets together in the fall/winter for a horizontal of the new vintage, usually higher tier wines..

This year I'll need to source, because for the first time in memory I have zero of the new vintage (I didn't buy any EP in '97, but bought some on release). Hopefully there will be some dumps soon. Personally I like to taste young, with all it's limitations, rather than cellar a bunch of stuff solely on others sayso.

I too enjoy tasting wines in their youth, even in their extreme youth and that not only professionally but as a lover of wines. In addition to their own youthful pleasure (including when appropriate, gripping tannins and generous wood waiting to settle down) such early tasting also gives me the chance to see what the wine will be as it grows up - that is to say, from infancy to youth to adolescence to early and then late adulthood and finally to maturity. The only trick is catching it before it goes too far beyond its peak.

Best
Rogov

I enjoy tasting, even as bottle samples, and normally take part in Bill Blatch's travelling Bordeaux show, but I do not buy newly bottled Bordeaux for the purpose of tasting. Will certainly lap up anything anyone else sends my way, of course.

To me the ideal consumption of a case would be:
(a) 1 drunk at release or soon after
(b) 1-3 drunk to check on progress, whether shutdown, etc
(c) 7-10 drunk during mature period.
(d) possibly 1 drunk while fading.

Certainly the ones in category c are the most pleasurable, but I enjoy the process of watching a wine through it's lifespan.

[David M. Bueker]

And of course if you never do (b) there's no real way to know when (c) will occur.

And if you never do (a) you don't know what to buy or you only follow other tasters' and writers' advice.

[David M. Bueker]

And if you never do (a) you don't know what to buy or you only follow other tasters' and writers' advice.

Or just buy Leoville Barton every year (as I used to do) and never be disappointed.

And if you never do (a) you don't know what to buy or you only follow other tasters' and writers' advice.

Given that a) is

To me the ideal consumption of a case would be:
(a) 1 drunk at release or soon after

the end may be served as well by tasting someone else's bottle, in a general or specialized tasting or from an agent, as by buying some to taste yourself. If I bought bottles of everything I was interested in purchasing, I wouldn't have any money left to buy wine, a sort of oenological Catch 22.

No barbs about infanticide from my corner. I depend on guys like Matt to report on wines like this in their infancy and adolescence. That way I don't have to buy a case. I can buy just 3-4 bottles of lots of different things and start opening them when the reports of maturity start coming in. That gives me some hope of getting to them all in their prime, but before they (or I) go over the hill.

'82 Talbot was one of my first Bdx purchases, and '86 was one of my first Bdx case purchases. Both are excellent, but I don't think they've been matched since.

No barbs about infanticide from my corner, either.

I'm just glad to be able to join some of Matt's annual "let's taste the latest Bordeaux vintage release" fall tastings. I buy my own wine to contibute (i really don't have a choice but to do that), but am always happy to learn which ones I would want to buy more of after the tastings.

Thanks for the notes on the 2006 Talbot. Matt.

Sacrifices in the name of science are always worthwhile, especially when done in group tastings.

What a lot of fuss over a simple half bottle. Infanticide? If I buy the stuff without tasting it first I'd be accused of being a point chaser. If I spend $20 experimenting then I'm some sort of wine-murderer.

Buckle up hearty souls, I've got SIX more to taste! And one of them is from a 750ml! And another one is (dramatic pause) PONTET CANET! Oh the horror!

You guys crack me up.




Looking forward to seeing you RC.