Claret is the right word for the relatively lean 1975 bordeaux, which have at long last blossomed. At the top end anyway…
The first bordeaux vintage I ever tasted en primeur was 1975. As I noted about the experience in my 1997 professional memoir Confessions of a Wine Lover (Tasting Pleasure in the US), the wines tasted like a mix of ink and cold tea. The vintage was received with great relief by the wine trade because there hadn’t been a successful vintage since 1970 but it was notoriously high in tannin – and was made in the pre-1982...