I attended a private reception to celebrate the opening of the BC
Liquor Board's new facility at Cambie Street in Vancouver.

The feature wines were those of Mouton and Julien de Rothschild was in
attendance.

They had bottles of the 2003 Mouton Cadet Blanc and the 2001 Mouton
Cadet Reserve (red) which I tasted with curiosity as I hadn't tried
them in years. Not sure what the 'reserve' might indicate on an
already inexpensive wine.

Blanc - a vague whiff of sauvignon blanc was overwhelmed by sulphur.
On palate a generic white plonk, surpassed by any number of similarly
priced wines from BC or Chile, much less France.

The Mouton Cadet red had a decent if simple fruit nose and that was
about it - lacking on palate - just nothing much there. For a
similar price the currently available Ch. Peyruad , a modest Blaye
wine, just blows it away, and I am sure there are many others.

They then opened a 5 litre bottle of the 2000 grand vin, which is what
all of us (about 30 ardent Bordeaux fanatics) had been waiting for.

Well first, it has a wonderful ravishing nose with loads of up front
fruit and admirable complexity in the nose for such a young wine. But
from there we were scratching our heads a little. The first thing that
hits you on palate is acidity, and a fair bit of it, and only after the
wine has aired for some time do the tannins assert themselves, and even
then not as firmly as one would expect. I would not call this a heavy
weight wine, more a light heavyweight, and it is already very
approachable. Is it a good wine? Undoubtedly. Is it a great wine as
some reviewers have opined? Not to my way of thinking unless the wine
somehow blossoms forth hours later with virtues unsuspected at a mere
hour and a half's acquaintance with it. Is it worth $300 US - not
to me. The maitre of the local chapter of the commanderie de Bordeaux
was tasting with me and we chatted about the wine. We were pretty much
of the same opinion as to weight and future development. Are we missing
something here - is this really a monumental wine (Parker suggests
that it needs 24 - 48 hours open)?

I consoled myself by buying a copy of Julien's excellent large format
book on the Mouton art collection and having him inscribe it for me.
If I am wrong about his mother's wine, well, I'll just have to
console myself by drinking the 1986 (and I know that I'm not wrong
about that one - it's what I rather expected the 2000 to be from
its lavish reviews).

Julien, by the way, seems a very nice chap whose first love is clearly
art of the conventional rather than vinous type, with a gallery in
London, I believe.