Wine Review of 2010 Château Couhins-Lurton Rouge, Pessac-Léognan, Bordeaux
Score: 93/100
Château Couhins-Lurton is part of the Vignobles André Lurton properties. It is a classified growth (Grand Cru des Graves) for its white wine, but also producing the red wine reviewed here.
The 2010 vintage was a particularly sunny one in Bordeaux, not such a hot one but with long period of drought from 21 June to late September. It is considered one of the greatest vintages of 2000s.
This is a 77%Merlot and 23% Cabernet Sauvignon blend, vinified in stainless steel tanks and aged in French oak barrel.
Tasting Notes
This Bordeaux red wine from the Graves comes in a very dark red color, looking particularly dense (you can’t see through the core) but also youthful. Despite its 7 years of age at the time of tasting, the rim looks dark and of an intense red, not much of an orange hue to it, therefore no sign of much evolution yet.
The nose also feels packed with concentration. So much so in fact, that it doesn’t let out so much aroma, just like a young and tight Bordeaux wine ought to. Aromas and complexity, it’s keeping it for itself, and for it to be revealed later after a few years of ageing, for the patient wine connoisseur.
Smell the wine now, and you’ll pick some delicate vanilla notes, wood ashes from the oak, a definite blackcurrant/blackberry fruit character from the Cabernet Sauvignon, spicy black pepper, nutmeg and other sweet spices. It smells very deep, complex too, but somewhat like a black hole, you know there’s a lot more going on in there than what it allows your senses to perceive right now!
The palate is more telling, and gives the full picture of this wine’s potential.
What strikes is the smoothness and concentration of the tannins. They are indeed extremely dense, fine too, and veeeery smooth. Helped by a round but full body, the wine provides a silky texture to your taste buds.
Delicate dark ripe red berry flavors come through, together with burnt wood ashes, caramel, touches of vanilla, and a wealth of sweet spices. The whole feels in between fruity, from the ripe berry tones, and savory, from so much dry —some would say slightly austere—, ashy, and spicy flavors.
Layered finish on a myriad of smoky and peppery notes.
Overall
A red Bordeaux wine with a huge potential to be revealed, if you give it several years ageing, for opening up and developing its full complexity.
Surprisingly, this is a good and enjoyable drink right now, with soft silky tannins and round body. It captures your attention and takes you into a swirl of soft cushiony sensations at tasting it now in 2017.
When to Drink?
Give it 5 or 10 years, and it’ll liberate its whole bouquet, its fruit and spices that now seem trapped into the dense tannic structure of the wine, to deliver I’m sure and explosive yet refined firework of layered and complex flavors then.
A beautiful tight, dense, and precise vintage has Couhins-Lurton delivered with this 2010. Look out for it now, and watch out for it when it reaches its peak in a few years’ time.
Drink between 2022 and 2030+…
Enjoy 🙂
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