Following on from our very successful Bordeaux 2009 tasting in London last Monday, Emmanuel Cruse from Ch. d’Issan (Margaux’s oldest château, no less) came in to give us a taste of some of his vibrant, floral back-vintages and explain to us a little about the history of this beautiful estate.

It’s been the most hectic, frantic and let’s face facts, bonkers three weeks of my 22 years in the wine business. Seventeen hours-a-day of what seemed like stratospheric prices that we shouldn’t buy at one minute, that then sell out in an hour…….I’ve never seen anything like it.
 
So is this insanity that’s all going to go belly up or is this a new world order for top wines and are these prices really here to stay? 
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Every year the time between when we taste the wines and when we get the prices to sell them to you seems to get longer and longer. I just wanted to express how I understand your frustrations with the ludicrous and seemingly pointless nature of this delay. I have to say this is the most ridiculous way for any product to get to “market”. We tasted these great wines at the end of March, we told you about their various merits the 2nd week of April. Ok, so then we have to wait for good old Parker to release his edict, marvel at the stunned awe etc. etc., but that was the end of April…….it’s June 14th!

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The mighty Parker has released his scores for Bordeaux’s 2009s – possibly the most important document in wine history since the 1855 classification – and guess what? He actually seems to agree with us! Many have been the years where we have read through Parker’s proclamations with a sense of bewildered wonderment – 2003/2005/2008 for example.
 
Well, this year he seems to have seen the light and hasn’t, like many, declared 2009 the best vintage in living history, but has sensibly informed the wine world that, although many chateaux have made the best wines in memory, it is not a blanket vintage and many wines are too alcoholic and lack definition.

However, as we have always maintained, Parker, although a great critic and undoubtedly one of the most influential men of our times, is simply one man.  One man who’s opinion affects an entire industry, so when he gives the brilliant 09 Ch. Latour 98-100 points but, in the next breath, awards the same status to certain Right Bank wines which were, in our (team’s!) opinion, over-extracted, over-alcoholic and stand-your-spoon-up-in-them thick, we can’t help but wonder whether being all things to all men is simply not a sensible tactic (the wines we are talking about shall remain nameless). The sad fact is that most people don’t read Parker’s notes, they just care about the score, so if they enjoy the classy, subtle elegance of Ch. Latour and then decide to try another of his more “exotic” 100-pointers, they are bound to be disappointed, and vice versa of course. To me it would seem very helpful to the reader that he identifies the “pea soupers” (PS?) as Modern Style (MS) perhaps. Anyway, enough rambling on, the report will only add fuel to the 2009 fire. Message to Chateaux….Come on ….let’s get on with it!

While we were in Bordeaux we asked some of the top châteaux to sum up the 2009 vintage in a few words, below is a round up of eveyone’s thoughts:

Our first full day was spent in Pauillac, with the team very much in tune with the vintage. The quality of what we have tasted is consistent, and very high.  It’s also a year where the characteristics of each property shine through – the last wine of the day was Mouton and, even as we drove south through St Julien later on, its taste was still ingering on our palates. Incredible.

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I caught up with world famous wine writer Jancis Robinson MW for our, now traditional, chat about the release of the new Bordeaux vintage.

Find out about Jancis’ top three value tips for Bordeaux 2009, which was the best wine I have ever tasted en primeur and what wines I plan to buy. Also hear more on what effect social media is having on this year’s campaign.

For  more information about Bordeaux 2009, including a full list of tasting notes and how to sign up to receive email alerts, visit bbr.com

After a glorious weekend recovering from what I have to say was a completely exhausting week in Bordeaux (and several bottles of reviving Burgundy to aid the process), I can sit down now and actually format in my mind what we experienced and after assimilating that, what’s going to happen next.

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Our last day of our Bordeaux 2009 en primeur week was spent in the Graves – a 9am start at Ch. la Mission Haut-Brion, tasting both Haut-Brion and La Mission.

We’d already been mentally preparing our taste buds for the final First Growth of the Médoc. Ch. Haut-Brion was fabulous, showing subtle red fruit aromas and an expressive palate with ripe tannins, glorious depth and resounding flavours. We felt however that it was pipped to the post by La Mission’s deep black cherry and cassis aromas, gorgeous texture and fine precision, all balanced perfectly within a framework of elegance.

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Our final day in the Left Bank – and what a day. After the euphoria of ‘09 Latour, we were raring to try the other First Growths of Pauillac.

Our first stop was Ch. Lafite where we tasted on one side of the table and a group of top UK journalists faced us on the other (left). To be fair, Lafite stood proud. It had an amazing perfume on the mid-palate with utterly refined elegance and poise; a wonderful Lafite. So far though, the astonishing Latour was still our front runner.

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We woke up to a gloomy morning in the Médoc with dark clouds and heavy rain overhead as we drove to Pauillac. Fortunately, despite the continuing monsoon, our spirits were lifted after the first few tastings.

Our expectations of this being a Cabernet vintage were confirmed beyond doubt yesterday. It felt like being at home again after tasting the Pauillacs and St Juliens.

Stars of the day were: Ch. Branaire-Ducru (left), with its ethereal charm and elegance; Ch. Lynch Bages (in the photo at the bottom left) surpassing its 2005 with its layers of fruit and wonderful complexity, and Ch. Grand-Puy-Lacoste with its lovely precision, restraint and mineral elegance.  We managed to have a quick chat with a couple of the wine makers too: (more…)

We spent yesterday morning tasting at the warehouse facility of one of Bordeaux’s largest négociants. ‘Warehouse’ is a somewhat misleading term – this was a very slick operation. The atmospheric tasting room was dripping with fairy lights (left) and we were able to choose samples from an extensive list which were then served at perfect tasting temperature.

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Our tasting of the Right Bank yesterday culminated in, what turned out to be, a more-than-usually special visit to Le Pin. As ever, we arrived at the strangely uninspiring building that has come to symbolise the entrepreneurial nature of this iconic producer’s fortunes.

To taste the 2009s however, we moved to the new chai (left), all of 100m away, which had much more space than the low-ceilinged basement of the old house. The wine was fabulous – its alcohol level of only 13.5 is a miracle in a vintage where virtually every Merlot we had tasted was 14-15%. Beautifully balanced, harmonious and concentrated, yet fresh – this is surely one of the great wines of Le Pin.

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Despite all predictions of rain, it was a beautiful, crisp, sunny morning (left) as we drove to the Right Bank at the crack of dawn today.
 A brief taste of a couple of 2009s last night has only served to whet our appetites. Today would be the day when we would get our first real impressions of the 2009 vintage.

 So – what did we think? Well, so far the jury is out.

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After all the eager anticipation of the last few months, it seems rather surreal to now be standing in (a somewhat overcast) Bordeaux – left. The flight was remarkably uneventful, given all the threats of a strike but the plane, full of the UK wine trade, was buzzing with all the talk of the week ahead, and of the hundreds of potentially legendary wines that await us. 

We have a packed schedule: Right Bank tomorrow with the morning spent at Figeac and Angelus among others; then to Margaux on Tuesday, finishing at Palmer; moving on to some powerful Pauillacs on Wednesday, Lynch-Bages and Latour a few of the heavyweights. Lafite, Mouton and Léoville-Las Cases make an appearance on Thursday and we finish, as ever, with some fabulous Péssac-Leognans on Friday: Haut-Brion, Domaine de Chevalier and the lovely wines of Haut-Bailly – the final curtain call.

 So, ladies and gentlemen, please fasten your seatbelts, make sure your seat back is upright and your tray table stowed away, and welcome to the supersonic experience that will be Bordeaux 2009.

Having just returned from a break-neck few days in Bordeaux with our buyer, Max Lalondrelle, our early thoughts on the vintage are… .that we really can’t say for sure! Dull, I know, but we only tried a handful of finished wines and only twice that amount in barrel samples – and that’s just not broad enough to hang a “Greatest ” tag on…just yet!

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I was invited to the brilliant gastro-pub, The Wellington Arms,  in deepest darkest Basingstoke a couple of nights ago by a bon viveur of a client. Sadly, as I’m not the most well organised person, I’d left it too late in the day to plunder my own cellar (housed here rather than home, as the temptation is too great!) so I had to make a hasty stop in the shop to pick out a bottle of something modest and appropriate.

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Berrys’ Bordeaux Buyer Max Lalondrelle reports on the vintage.

Just back from Bordeaux where I spent a few days assessing the nearly harvested 2009 vintage. I also took this opportunity to look at newcomers that might be included into the Berrys’ portfolio.

Over the three days there were no clouds to be seen the temperature was a steady 28 degrees. It has to be pointed out that the weather in Bordeaux (and the rest of France) has been text book, with the fruits being the healthiest I have ever seen. When tasted, the berries are extra ripe and even the pips are mature. All the ingredients of a good vintage look to be in place.
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We visited Haut-Bailly yesterday where Veronique Sanders echoed the optimism that we’ve seen at every property up until now – she said that so far it has been the most perfect growing season she has seen in her tenure at Haut-Bailly.  Last year the estate began to pick their young Merlot vines on 25th September, this year it was a full 10 days earlier.

Apparently the defining characteristic of this year’s growing season has been one of warm days but cool nights, which is normally a sign that the resulting wines will be well balanced.  July, August and September have been the driest for 10 years, but they’ve had just enough rain at just the right moment to prevent any hydric stress.

Clearly everyone is keeping their fingers crossed for the next two or three weeks, but so far everything seems to augur well.

At Domaine de Chevalier yesterday we watched the white juice going into barrel for alcoholic fermentation and witnessed the backbreaking work of moving all the barrels into position in the cellar.  There was a man – or rather a small mountain in human form – shifting these full barrels around, this bloke was colossal!

There was a huge treat too – tasting some Sauvignon juice that was crushed the day before – it was Dom de Chevalier blanc ‘09 in it’s purest form – fermentation won’t begin for another three days. Fantastic – superbly ripe but also fresh and with great acidity….it’s already so long on the palate – they are very excited about it.  Conditions have been fantastic this year and he (Remy) is so far comparing conditions to ‘ 05 and ‘89…..that’s not a guarantee of what will happen but “we imagine it will not be bad!”