Friday 18th December 2009

It's been a hectic week in the stores this week, but Imperial Wharf still found time to put on what we think must be the Wimbledon Wine Cellar tasting of the year - a re-enactment of the "Berlin Tasting" of 2004, where Eduardo Chadwick of Chile's Errazuriz put his wines up against the best of Bordeaux in a competitive blind tasting and his wines came out winners.

Earlier this year, the same tasting was put on for the wine trade in London (which we went along to) and, even though the wines still placed highly, overall Chile didn't fare quite as well, although some felt that the many MWs present were able to 'pick' the Bordeaux and this may have biased the scores they allocated the wines.

So we were interested to see on Tuesday how our clients - fine wine drinkers rather than wine trade - would think the likes of Vinedo Chadwick, Sena and La Cumbre of Chile stack up against Chateau Lafite, Margaux and Latour - all from 2005 to avoid accusations of showing a 'duff' Bordeaux vintage.

Well, even though a couple of our more 'seasoned' Premier Cru Classé drinkers spotted the Bordeaux in the line up, Chile definitely came out as the winner, with the top three consisting of La Cumbre 2007 from Chile at number one, closely followed by Vinedo Chadwick 2007 (Chile) in second place, with Chateau Margaux 2005 (Bordeaux) and Sena 2007 (Chile) tied for third position. Latour and Lafite were very much also-rans.

So does this show that the Chilean wines are 'better' than their aristocratic counterparts from Bordeaux? Well, in a word, no. Premier Cru Classé wines have a proven track record of improving over many years in the cellar and, even though the Chileans certainly have ageing potential, it's too early to say if they share this attribute of incredible longevity and ability to gain far greater complexity over time.

But... it certainly shows that they deserve to be considered in the same category of world class fine wine as the Bordeaux and, at around 10-15% of the price of the likes of '05 Lafite, they look astonishingly good value.

The results (number shown after the wine is average score given by clients out of 10):

1. La Cumbre 2007 9.1
2. Vinedo Chadwick 2007 8.8
3=. Chateau Margaux 2005 8.2
3=. Sena 2007 8.2
5. Chateau Latour 2005 8.1
6. Kai 2007 7.9
7. Opus One 2005 7.8
8=. Dom Maximiano 2007 7.7
8=. Sassicaia 2005 7.7
10. Chateau Lafite 2005 6.1