UGCB 2016 Release Tour Chicago

UGCB North American 2016 Vintage Release Tour Chicago

The UGC Bordeaux' (Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux (UGCB)), annual release tour visited Chicago this week unveiling/showcasing their 2016 vintage release wines. The Union is the association of 134 of the top premier estates from the most prestigious Bordeaux appellations. This year's North American tour visited New York, Toronto, Chicago, LA and San Francisco.
 
As in previous years, our 'Pour Boys' wine group helped host the event in Chicago at the Drake Hotel in the elegant grand ballroom (shown below). We work with the Balzac team preparing the room, checking in trade registrants, and standing in for producers pouring their wines. As has happened several times in recent years, several producer's were delayed in travel and we were called in to service to pour wines, hence our moniker, 'Pour Boys'.

Close to a hundred producers were represented at the event that was attended by over five hundred members of the trade, media and industry.

This annual roadshow is a marathon trek across North America by the producers and their representatives offering wine professionals and eonphiles the chance to meet the Bordeaux principles, winemakers and commercial directors. 

As I've written in previous years, we appreciate the investment in time and effort expended by the producers and winemakers to visit Chicago. It provides a wonderful opportunity to meet them firsthand and discuss their perspectives on their brand, approach to crafting their style, their history, businesses, and their vintages including, of course, the current release.

Céline Villars-FOUBET, Owner, 

Château Chasse-Spleen

( Moulis-en-Médoc )

As a collector and holder of a significant collection of Bordeaux wines dating back four decades, I hold as many as a dozen vintages or more of some of these labels. Meeting the owners, family members, producer / winemaker / representative is a great privilege and offers a collector the chance to learn more about their investment and wines. As such, I tend to focus on and taste those wines that I know well and of which my wine buddies and I have holdings.

This was the ninth Bordeaux release event that I and my wine buddies assisted the team at Balzac Communications to work the event, helping with set up, logistics, and standing in to pour wine for any featured producers that were not able to attend in person. Earlier UGCB and related events are featured in earlier unwindwine blogposts. 

Again this year as in several earlier years, winter storms delayed or disrupted travel prohibiting some of the ambassadors to get to Chicago for the event, calling us to duty standing in, performing our duties as 'pour' boys.

This year's 2016 vintage was spectacular with several of the producer's having been awarded 100 points by the critics. I stood in for the Pauillac producers whose arrival was delayed by flight disruptions coming in from Toronto. It was a great honor to pour some of my absolute favorite wines: Chateau Lynch Bages, Chateau Longueville Baron, Chateau Pichon Comtesse de Lalande, Grand Puy Lacoste and Grand Puy Ducasse. I also served Chateau Les Ormes de Pez. 

The Pichon Lalande and Lynch Bages were spectacular, both standouts of the tasting. There were so many great wines in this vintage release. As is the case in a great vintage, all boats rise with the tide. Great wines are tremendous, but in a great vintage, the lesser second and even third labels are also wonderful. These often provide substantial QPR - quality price ratio, especially when the premier first labels often escalate in price due to demand for such a vintage. 

These vintages offer great opportunities for folks to stock their cellars in super wines at great values since they can fill in with the second and third labels at substantial discounts to the first premier flagship label of the brand.  

Coralie Bernard,
Domaine De Chevalier

The event is sponsored by the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux, (UGCB) under the leadership of President Olivier Bernard. It is hosted and orchestrated by Balzac Communications, boutique wine marketing and communications consultancy firm in Napa, under the leadership of Mike Wangbickler, President. Attending this year too was Paul Wagner, founder and President Emeritus of Balzac. Paul is a founding member of the Academy of Wine Communications and a leading member of the American Wine Society. It was great to see Paul enjoying his passion and remaining engaged whilst in retirement. 

The afternoon session is for the benefit of the press and trade and wine professionals. As is customary in Chicago, Binny's Beverage Depot, the wine superstore offers tickets to the evening session, open to their valued customers and the public. This year, over four hundred collectors and vinophiles registered for the event.

Scene's from this years' vintage release tasting.  

David Launay, Sales Director,
Château Grand-Puy Ducasse

Céline Villars-FOUBET, Owner, 

Château Chasse-Spleen

Céline Villars-FOUBET, Owner, 

Château Chasse-Spleen

( Moulis-en-Médoc )

Chateau Chasse-Spleen has been managed by women for the past thirty years: Jacques Merlaut’s daughter, Bernadette Villars, starting in 1976, followed by her daughter, Claire, beginning in 1992, and now her sister, Céline, shown above.

Fellow 'Pour Boy' Ernie Summers

Christine Lurton-de Caix, Marketing
Manager for Château La Louvière
( Pessac-Léognan )

The always dapper Count Stephan von Neipperg,
Château Canon-La-Gaffelière, sans his signature scarf.

Representing eight centuries of family winegrowing tradition, Count Stephan von Neipperg (above) has succeeded in promoting Château Canon-La-Gaffelière to Premier Grand Cru Classé de Saint-Émilion status.

Dany Rolland, wife of legendary winemaker Michel Rolland, co-founder of Rolland Collection family business, including Bordeaux laboratory specializing in wine analysis in the Right Bank town of Libourne.

Lise Latrille, Sales and Marketing Director,
  Château Prieuré-Lichine

 Ronan Laborde, Owner,

Château Clinet

( Pomerol )

Loic Chanfreau, Chateau Fonreaud,
Sophie Solnicki-Thierry, Chateau Forcas-Hosten

Anne-Francoise Quié, family owner of
Châteaux Rauzan-Gassie

David Suire, Commercial Director

Château Larcis Ducasse

Rick serving Pichon Longueville Baron

Château La Louvière Pessac-Leognan 1994

Château La Louvière Pessac-Leognan 1994

Home alone for the evening, I opened a half bottle from the cellar to enjoy a glass with leftover BBQ rib dinner. I enjoy keeping 375ml small format bottles for such occasions for convenience and for temperate consumption. This is one of a half dozen remaining from a case of 1/2 bottles acquired back on release of this wine, noting that a such a case contains the same amount of wine, in twice as many bottles - 24x375 is 9 liters, the same as a 12x750ml case. I've also written in these pages, that the 375ml, 1/2 bottle format, also allows for tasting two times as many wines if opening multiple bottles for a tasting, with the same consumption.

The last time I reviewed this wine in a 1/2 bottle from this case eighteen months ago, I wrote, "While I lauded that there was life left in the earlier bottle tasting note, tonight, the dark berry fruits are definitely giving way to non-fruit earth, leather, creosote and musty wood notes.

Dark ruby color with a brownish tinge starting to set in. Medium bodied, leathery and smoky creosote tones predominate over the black cherry and black berry fruits, accented by cedar and tangy and slightly tart cinnamon spice that gives way to a big full floral note that fills the mouth and lingers for minutes with the tongue coating moderate tannins."

That deterioration of this wine approaching the end of its drinking window continues as the fruit continues to fall off with non-fruit tones encroaching. It should be noted that wine ages less gracefully in smaller format bottles. I need to keep this in mind and not wait so long between bottles, and need to consume these remaining soon (er).

PS. Saving half of the bottle until the second night, the funkiness had blown off, replaced by the floral tones of its youth, with the fruit re-emerging to the grandeur of earlier. The lesson: don't be hasty to rush a twenty plus year old... give it some time to open, settle and return to its native character and profile. 

RM 85 points the first evening on opening, 87 points the second evening.

https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=38869


Previous reviews ....

http://unwindwine.blogspot.com/2015/06/chateau-la-louviere-pessac-leognan-1994.html

http://unwindwine.blogspot.com/2013/12/chateau-la-louviere-pessac-leognan.html