Bordeaux 2006 Live Report 11

From the glamorous hostesses with their authoritarian black wellington boots (Aigle rather than Barbour) to the rather outré modern art in the reception to the rich, luscious modern style of the wines, everything at Ducru screams 'look at me!' and to be honest it is very hard not to. One can mock the neon basketball playing bunny, or the white bikini-clad rabbit mannequin eating ice cream, and indeed pretty much everyone does, but the fact remains the wines Borie is making here are pretty good. The style is modern, possibly lacking a bit of complexity, and at this stage the alcohol and tannins are a bit awkward and prominent, but nevertheless this is one of the biggest Ducrus ever - seductive and silky with rich black cherry fruit and hints of coffee and cedar. There is no doubt it has considerable potential.

Gruaud Larose doesn't need bunnies to be sexy - and indeed you can't really imagine Manager David Launay and owner Jean Merlaut ever going down that particular road - in 2006 they have done it with the wine. This 2006 is a bit like Helen Mirren - one moment she is all staid and traditional as the Queen, and the next moment she is looking sexy and voluptuous at The Oscars - well 2006 is the equivalent of Gruaud Larose's trip to Tinseltown. This is an abnormally luscious wine with good tannic grip but the blackberry and strawberry fruit is there in abundance. It is also very stylish in that typically chunky Gruaud Larose way.

Next on the list was another rising star of Bordeaux, Ch. Branaire-Ducru. Where Ducru is all crowd-pleasing fruit and pizzazz, Branaire is wonderfully sophisticated and stylish with great precision and elegance. This is sexy too in its own smouldering restrained way, and is all the better for it. The tannins come thundering in at the finish, but fortunately the rich summer fruit is close behind to back it up. General Manager Jean Dominique Videau is equally restrained - less smouldering though - and is clearly to be congratulated for producing such a fantastic 2006. In the hierarchy of things this is as good as the Pichons, not as good as Léoville-Poyferré but probably better than Léoville-Barton.

So, things were looking up - St Julien may be varied but at the top end it seems to have done very well in 2006. We actually had a list of wines we actually wanted to buy ourselves (as long as sanity prevails on the pricing front, of course!) which is always our measure of what we want to recommend to our customers. We finally felt comfortable too saying that in certain appellations 2006 is better than 2004, which was certainly not something that we thought halfway through the week!

Our final visit of the day was to Ch. Montrose where under new ownership Bordeaux legend Jean-Bernard Delmas (left) was appointed Director in Jan 2007. Having made over 40 vintages of Haut Brion, it is fair to say that there are few men better qualified to maximise the quality of the fantastic terroir here. It was little surprise too that the Podcask we did with him was one of the most fascinating of the trip.

Montrose is similar to Cos quality-wise but is a very different style. It is not big, dark and brooding like Cos, it still has the classic St Estèphe earthiness and minerality but in a slightly more feminine and silky style. It does tend to be a more attractive, although not often a better, wine than Cos, but in 2006 balance and finesse is the key for this wine. This a very good Montrose with dense crushed blackberries, very high tannins and a cool classic edge, but it lacks a tiny bit of concentration and complexity to be a great Montrose. Delmas has definitely put them on the right road though, so the future looks very bright indeed.