30°C in Bordeaux on the 7th of October

[AlexR]

All records are being broken, yesterday's by over 4°C.

I have never seen such a long spell of consistently fine weather in over three decades.

Of course, people will jump the gun and assume the wine is great regardless of its intrinsic qualities (which helps to make up for prejudice and oversimplification the other way around in unfashionable years...) - as though all it takes a glance at the weather report to understand fine wine.
But such is the way of things .

The factors I'm interested in knowing are:
- the role of the relative drought conditons in different terroirs
- the skin (thickness) to pulp ratio
- the role of the precise picking time, especially with regard to alcohol and acid levels (early indications
are of very high sugar levels)
- how difficult it is to ferment the wines in such as way as to maintain fresheness.

Meanwhile, the media are hungry for the 3rd "VINTAGE OF THE CENTURY" in a decade and, BY GOD, they will have it .
Good bye to the golden calves of 2000 and 2005, welcome to 2009 idolatry!
Let the fever begin!!!

Best regards,
Alex R.

[stefan]

Ho-hum.

stefan

[Houndsong]

This will be the Goldilocks vintage. I'm afraid that those who purchased prior iterations of the greatest vintages ever will now have to "step up" once again if they don't want the real deal to be snapped up by vulgar new moneyistas.

[Nicklasss]

Well, let 2009 be the 3rd vintage of the centyry of the decade.

Me too, I'm worried, especially for the prices... But like you wrote Alex, what is the real ''quality'' of that vintage, when you look at everything... Of course, 30C in October, I assume this is quite unusual for Bordeaux, but if high temperatures and lots of sunny days are the recipe for great wines, and Bordeaux producers are limiting themselves to that, I don't believe it as there are way more things that makes a great wine. Who wants Bordeaux reccioto?

Nic

[Comte Flaneur]

Exactly Nic...as someone somewhere else quipped who wants to drink Bordeaux that tastes like it was grown in Alicante?

The safest prediction one can make is that the scores will be off the charts, lots of mid-high 90s

Following on from that prices will be ridiculous, particularly because 'quantitative easing, 'aka money printing' is accelerating the demise of the dollar's reserve currency status (for sterling based punters it will be just as bad)

My guess is that stylistically you will get a cross between 2003 and 2005, and it won't be a great vintage for aficionados...afterall surely bordeaux is all about balance and equilibrium not about extract and power?

Ironically 2009 would have perhaps been a great vintage if it was in 1979...

Even if it is a great vintage most of us are too old to drink it when it matures. My strategy from here is to do opportunistic drivebys in the less fashionable vintages 1975 to 2002

This week picked up bottles of -

Mouton 75 @220
Latour 79 @ 180
OK one bottle of Ausone 04 @ 300 - what price the 09 Ausone?

[Blanquito]

Crazy weather, Alex. What's the weather like in April? A few of us are seriously toying with the idea of a trip to Bordeaux around Easter.

Good points all around, and I bought enough 2005 to last me a life time (partially from worry about the dollar's long-term decline), so I can now happily sit back and watch the frenzy ensue (as I'm still <40 yrs, I may cherry-pick some deals and personal favorites). But as we learned with 2005, there's virtually no reason to buy futures anymore as the prices on release and even today in many cases were virtually the same as the astronomical futures pricing, unless you luck out on a sleeper wine like the 2000 Charmail ($13 as futures, $35 and up once Parker gave it 93pts).

Ian, what are your views on the 2000 and 2005 Bordeaux vintages? I'm a big fan of 2000 and I have high hopes for 2005.

[Comte Flaneur]

Patrick - I have tried two big hitters from 2000 - Ch Margaux and Ch Pichon Baron - and I was shocked how new world-y they tasted, and how easy they were to drink: - the Margaux was a slutty caricature of Ch Margaux and the Baron - well, I did not recognise it as Bordeaux. That is going back 2-3 years and those round the table loved it but I didn't. I think from memory it was a BWE event in a hot'n'sultry Latino joint on the upper west side. Otherwise minor wines or second wines - Fiefs de Lagrange, Potensac etc, which have been very good. I bought quite a lot in that vintage and many of the top names, but I am not planning on broaching any on any foreseeable horizon. The few 2005s I have tasted have been excellent - they seem to have everything - my only concern is about the degree of extract, and hence balance. I think that may be the problem with modern bordeaux - that balance is being sacrificed for the sake of greater extract - but I am not a scientist so I may be talking out of my backside. I only own a handful of bottles of 2005s because I simply refused to pay the asking prices. I own more 2001s, 2004s and 2006s than 2005s. I bought three cases of 2003, one of which was Pontet-Canet, the other two I have been trying off-load, so far without success. I don't like to generalise but I think the 2003 vintage is a shocker - based on what I have tried.

What are your thoughts?

[Nicklasss]

With that kind of weather, soon they'll be able to plant Chateauneuf-du-Pape's grapes around Bordeaux... Harry will be happy.

I like my Bordeaux from normal weather vintage, to lightly better weather but with good acids. When superripe, I'm not sure yet, as the elegant black berry fruits is transformed in more ripe rasberry red berry fruits. That last one, you can find it elsewhere in the World, in almost any warm weather country.

Nic

[Blanquito]

By and large, I haven't tasted the big boys from the 2000 or 2005 vintage, so my observations are more on the mid-to-low price-scale.

That said, I've found 2000 more classic/drier with higher acidity and tougher tannins than the 2005 I've tried. The exciting aspect to both vintages is how well the cru bourgeois performed, so bargain hunters like me scored big (and it doesn't matter if these bargains taste like really good Cali cabs, because they cost 50-75% less than really good Cali cabs).

My principle concern is how these wines will develop, much more so for 2005. Right now, generally speaking the 2005's are too rich, too extracted, too plush to satisfy my love of true claret. Will these button-down and become more classic in time? I have zero experience with the aging of such wines (I'm much more confident in the 2000s turning into something special, even a few of the Rolland wines!). I have experienced the "miracle in the bottle" with closed, boring wines metamorphosing into something magical with enough time in the bottle, so I can believe in that scenario (say, for the 1998 Right Bankers, which are mostly still hard). Parker loves to quote Delmas from Haut-Brion that a great wine ages on its fruit. If this is true, the 2005's will be legendary. Personally, I believe wines age/develop on their balance, and 2000 seems balanced to me. Can a wine with tremendous extract morph into a classic Bordeaux as long as it has the tremendous tannin and acids, like maybe the 1982 or 1986 Moutons?

Finally, there's the issue of style. We can agree that some vintners and enologists take chateau in different modern directions, but surely there must be someone other making wines like they did in 1989, 1990 or even 1996? GPL, Figeac, Batailley, etc? The 2000 Figeac is terrific, anyone try the 2005 Batailley (which got 92pts from Parker, incidentally)?