Château Cos d'Estournel

It was a few years ago, but it still rings in my ears. At an event with Jean-Guillaume Prats (son of the former owner Bruno Prats - now managing director of the winery), the question was asked: "What has changed decisively in the wine of Cos d'Estournel in recent years?". Jean-Guillaume Prats' frank answer: "Above all, the wine is now made in such a way that it is ready for consumption much earlier." In other words, the trend towards early-ripening Bordeaux has also taken hold at Cos d'Estournel. Times have changed, in a mobile society one no longer has the nerve (and in many cases the possibility) to store wines for decades and wait for the moment when the wine will reach its "peak". Even Bordeaux are (and can be) drunk with pleasure after four or six years - two years of which are spent maturing at the château. Waiting and grounding is (no longer) a matter for our fast-moving consumer society. This sounds somewhat conservative, encrusted, stuck in the old (once upon a time). But this 94 - by no means an "old" Cos - brought it home to me once again. The wine - after all, almost twenty years "old", from a mediocre vintage - has really blossomed and can no longer be compared in its elegance and complexity with the sometimes powerful but far more superficial wines that have been made on the estate in recent years. Although little has changed in the style - it has remained surprisingly constant. The terroir at this top wine estate is surprisingly not bent to shape, Cos has remained Cos. And yet - in my opinion - there is a big difference between the "old" Cos d'Estournel and today's: I would describe it as "pleasantness". (Apart from the differences in the vintages). For me, today's Cos is more pleasing - I use the word "more made" to avoid using the frowned-upon word "more industrial". Whereas an old Cos - even in mediocre vintages - brings more personality, more individuality, more differentiation into the glass.