It is the Friday before the official Monday kick-off of Primeurs Week and ready or not, Chateaux are already pouring barrel samples, honoring requests for visits from early birds throughout the region.  I accompanied the Ansons on a Left Bank tour to taste the 2010 vintage at some of the biggest names in Bordeaux.

“We will serve no wine before its time” is an axiom that does not apply to Bordeaux futures.  The schedule pits competing factions in public  exhibition, competition, gamesmanship and publicity unlike any other consumer product.  Altogether, it is a most unusual new product rollout program in that the distribution channels and customers commit enormous sums to unfinished products to be delivered two years hence.

Jane and Francis Anson, local wine professionals from the UK, have made Bordeaux their home.  Raising two daughters in a newly finished home close-in to the heart of Bordeaux, the Ansons work two different sides of the business.  Jane is the well-known and highly regarded Bordeaux correspondent for Decanter, and also instructor at the CiVB.  Francis is employed with Les Vins de Crus, a Bordeaux negotiant.  Their schedules overlapped to everyone’s benefit and after bustling the two urchins to school, we headed into the Médoc at 8AM on bright sunny morning.

The first stop was none other than Chateau

Lafite Rothschild, listed as the first of the Firsts on the official 1855 Medoc Classified Growths roster.  Received by director Charles Chevalier, we were soon face to face with a trio of glasses, one that will bid out at well over $1,500 a bottle when it debuts next month.

This morning, the sample of Carruades de Lafite, to my tastes, is unprepared to be judged.  Fairly unresolved on the nose and a bit bitter in addition to the expected and desirable high tannin levels, it is much closer to vat samples with than a final blend, and it is not hanging together.  Mr. Chevalier takes my comment in stride and says, “These samples are just 3 weeks after the blending, and they change every day”.  He prefers to more properly assess the quality of his wines in June or July, allowing more time for the components to assimilate, like a good Bolognese.  By then of course, all the big decisions and reviews are in, the price has been set and the wine is oversubscribed. 

The Duhart-Milon exhibits few of these issues.  It is a deep blue wine, flush with plum and black fruit on a big structure.  It is engaging, and yet a trace of bitterness on the end reminds that it is very early in the game.

“It has been this way with Lafite for hundreds of years”, says Jane as we look at the row of bottles, including an 1811.  Throughout the ages, Lafite brings something to the table that other wines of similar stature and composition do not, and apparently, cannot. Elegance, wrapped in refinement, basking in starlight.  All of it is true in 2010.  The blend, 87.2% Cabernet and 12.8% Merlot, does little to tell the story.  Nearly the same blend is offered at First Growth Chateau Latour (90% Cab).  Latour has a tremendously impressive vineyard, the Enclos, with a battery of stainless steel vats, a meticulous director, and a huge, storied past replete with centuries of triumphant, celebrated vintages.  And yet, once again in 2010, the two wines present completely different sides of the same coin. 

Where the Latour compels, Lafite propels.  Latour enforces compliance.  Lafite encourages rapture.  For a Latour tasting, you make the effort to be at your best.  Latour tests your judgment as a taster -- you go in knowing you need to be prepared, and you come away hoping you were worthy to the challenge.  Lafite, however, simply makes you feel your best.  It embraces your soul, and you leave believing that life holds the capacity for great joy.

There will be wines of equal quality, and many will be bigger, more powerful, and perhaps more persuasive.  But it’s hard to imagine one that will be as serenely composed, with the certainty that, wherever it appears, all will be blissful.