Dark staining blood garnet. Quite alcoholic in the nose, and crammed with dense tropical and blue fruit, ridiculously concentrated, thick with lusciousness, clean oak and minty minerality. A heady cellar floor and wet paper creates a baseline for all to meld to, but creating a viscous, glycerin-ey feel quite uncomplicated and a bit sumptuous for Medoc.

In the mouth, slight burn accentuates all the fruit, blocking the peeking tertiary which runs acrid leather and spicy acid overtakes mid-palate, throwing the whole thing out of balance–a New World interpretation where flabby maceration becomes a rather unfulfilling fruitless middle and finish, where huge and still-vibrant tannins rule the roost. More alcohol is visible in the final throes, and fruit has long left the building.

It’s a pretty beautiful Bordeaux, very much in keeping with finding on a list in a Paso Robles restaurant–and fitting. Probably drinking at near-peak, which is disappointing for an 8YO Grand Cru Haut Medoc. There is no young pretty fruit cloaked in layers of green, merely black density and watered down with structure going NOWHERE.

2010 CHATEAU LA LAGUNE Cab/ME/PV Haut Medoc Grand Cru Classe Bordeaux France 14.5

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