Uncontroversial: 2000-2009 the greatest decade of Bdx

[Houndsong]

Gotta be, right? Three vintages of a billenium, one bizzaro vintage, no true stinker, and the rest at the very least servicable. I mean, not that I care. But I'm calling it.

[Blanquito]

Agreed. It's the Decade of the Hound alright. Maybe the 80's go to higher places (for a smallish group of classified chateau) than anything achieved in the Dog Decade, but it's no contest consistency wise.

That said, I like 82, 83, 85, 86, 88, and 89 a lot, but it's only for that 20-30 chateau most of the time.

But where are Meyneys of yesteryear? God, that Chateau kicked ass in the 80's. I had the 86 and 88 recently, and both were terrific old school clarets. Did the 2000s make any wines like that?

[AlexR]

Gosh, and look at Sauternes!

They have one especially well!

Pretty s***** spring weather. I think Bordeaux may no longer be on a roll.

Alex

[Claudius]

In counting, a decade is the 1st to 1oth year thus a decade would be 2001 to 2010, not 00 to 09

In any case, I am sticking to 81 to 1990 as the best of my lifetime.
84 and 87 were ordinary but the others were all very good to outstanding.

I don't accept that any recent vintage is better than 82 and further, winemaking styles have changed enormously.

[DavidG]

If you count decades as Claudius states, I'll vote for '81-'90 over '01-'10. Could change my mind in another decade, as it's too soon to tell for 2005 and on. Unless you are just going by what the critics say, but what's the fun in that? And the critics have changed their tunes in the past as vintages have developed.

The '80s had only one poor vintage, '84, and three killer vintages: '82, '89, and '90. Of the others, I would argue that '86 is turning out mighty damn fine despite the criticism of its tannins. '81, '83, and '88 are very good to excellent, '85 is very good, and '87 is just fair to good. They've thrown down the gauntlet, and the '00s have just begun to assemble their team.

[JimHow]

Yes but, as Blanquito implies, is the top-to-bottom quality of the 1980s as good as good as that of the 2000s?

Did the decade of the '80s have its Vrai Canon Bouches, and its Lanessans, and its Cap de Faugeres, and its Villars, and were the Duhart-Milons and Lafon Rochets and Pontet-Canets as consistently great as they are today?

Sure, Margaux and Haut Brion and Pichon Lalande and Leoville Las Cases were great in the 1980s, but were the Glorias and Smith Haut Lafites and Pape Clements, etc., as consistently successful as they have been in this decade? Or Lagrange and Gazin and Leoville Poyferre for that matter?

[Houndsong]

Yes, well we celebrated the new millenium at 2000 so I figured what the heck.

[Comte Flaneur]

Another nomination for the non-Parkerized, non-Rollandized, more fleet-footed and dextrous wines of the 80s for the accolade of decade of the billennium

[Houndsong]

I'd be interested to know how many times the phrase "vintage of a __________ " appears in Parker's writings/notes re the 1980s (however you define a decade). Seriously, I'll bet that phrase appears at least three times more re the 00 decade. Was he just feeling his way back then? A bit unsure of himself?

[DavidG]

Yes but, as Blanquito implies, is the top-to-bottom quality of the 1980s as good as good as that of the 2000s?

Did the decade of the '80s have its Vrai Canon Bouches, and its Lanessans, and its Cap de Faugeres, and its Villars, and were the Duhart-Milons and Lafon Rochets and Pontet-Canets as consistently great as they are today?

Sure, Margaux and Haut Brion and Pichon Lalande and Leoville Las Cases were great in the 1980s, but were the Glorias and Smith Haut Lafites and Pape Clements, etc., as consistently successful as they have been in this decade? Or Lagrange and Gazin and Leoville Poyferre for that matter?

Now we are getting to a discussion of how to define "Best Decade Ever." If we are going to go on the pleasure offered by the wines from top to bottom, Jim, I agree with you. If we are talking about the best of the best, I'll stick with the '80s.

And if we want to get a little metaphysical, if the Vrai Canon Bouches etc. knew in the '80s what they know now with respect to vineyard mgt and winemaking technique, they might have made even better wines in the '80s than the '00s.

[DavidG]

I'd be interested to know how many times the phrase "vintage of a __________ " appears in Parker's writings/notes re the 1980s (however you define a decade). Seriously, I'll bet that phrase appears at least three times more re the 00 decade. Was he just feeling his way back then? A bit unsure of himself?

Probably true, proving...???

I'll go with '00s for consistency, '80s for best of the best. For now.

[Houndsong]

Now we are getting to a discussion of how to define "Best Decade Ever." If we are going to go on the pleasure offered by the wines from top to bottom, Jim, I agree with you. If we are talking about the best of the best, I'll stick with the '80s.

And now we are getting to a discussion of how to define "Bordeaux." Best of the Best? Or does Bordeaux include more than the top dozen names?

Probably true, proving...???

That Parker would conclude that 00 is the better decade. Which is not the definitive answer to the question. Or is it? Perhaps hyperbole did not exist in the 80s.

[Chasse-Spleen]

I haven't read all the posts (can't really read well with my contacts in - ha ha!) but it doesn't seem like you can declare a Bordeaux decade of the billenium until the wines have matured. I agree, it's likely that the 00's or what ever you call it will be consistently good, but if you subtract '00, as someone pointed out, as you would have to subtract '90 from the 80s if you kept '00 as part of the millenium decade, I think the millenial decade becomes substatially weaker. We haven't even tried the '08s or '09s for Chrisssakes. The '80s are a pretty damn good decade of vintages. I think someone needs to do a year by year comparison between the decades of the 80s and 00s. And you have to decide where the 90/00 goes, cause it will make a big difference. You can't have it both ways!

-Chasse

[JimHow]

And if we want to get a little metaphysical, if the Vrai Canon Bouches etc. knew in the '80s what they know now with respect to vineyard mgt and winemaking technique, they might have made even better wines in the '80s than the '00s.

Yes. And if i had gotten better grades in high school I would have gone to Harvard. And if I'd gotten 600 more votes in my race for Congress I might be president today.

I think some would say it's not even close.... The wines of this past decade are light years ahead of the wines of twenty years ago, across the board.

Sure you have your '47 Cheval Blancs and your '61 Latours and your '89 Petruses, but some would say the overall quality top to bottom today is miles ahead of what it was as recently as twenty years ago.

[DavidG]

it doesn't seem like you can declare a Bordeaux decade of the billenium until the wines have matured.

+1

[DavidG]

I think some would say it's not even close.... The wines of this past decade are light years ahead of the wines of twenty years ago, across the board.

Not ready to concede the point for the top 25 or so wines of the vintage. Not saying you are wrong, but Chasse and I say the jury is still out.

For the rest, yes, but not because the decade was better, weather-wise. Because the winemakers were better.

As to the President thing, your only problem Jim is that you weren't any good at stuffing ballot boxes. Weren't then. Aren't now. But at least you're still tryin'.

[Houndsong]

Since the 80s then we can at least agree that Bordeaux is better than ever. But irrelevant anyhow.

[JimHow]

That is correct, Hound. By improving equipment, science, selection, technique, corks, storage, barrels, spending more money on improvements, focusing more on better shipment and storage of their product, Bordeaux has become... irrelevant....

[aimeedogdogdog]

I think you all might be right from your own angle. But the truth is in the pudding and only time could tell (more below).

I would like to add another criteria for considering -- provenance.
Often enough provenance is ignored to certain degree that most of the great wines we have been talking about is just in good considtion but not in a great one. We don't know what a great one is until we meet one. Let me remind those lucky 20 or so people of the 1929 Bungundy we had at the dinner in Bouchard in our BWE Bordeaux trip in 2005, which was young, vibrant, complex, mature, etc all at the same time. That's what great provenance is about. And that should be the benchmark. How many bottles in such a great condition you have encountered so far in your wine journey? For me it's like 5 bottles so far.

Other stuff to put in the equation:
-- So how often the wines were moved in the old days -- probably less so because trading was not really the theme. Nowadays the wines seem getting moved a lot. Is the modern cellaring better than before?
-- The drinking habit of the BRIC seems to drink the wine young (they don't have mature wine to drink). Given the large population involved, future bordeaux might not even survive their second year of life? That doesn't seem like so, huh?

So comparing 80s to 00s might become irrelevant...

Werner

[DavidG]

So Werner, you are saying that other than under exceptional circumstances, there is no way to accurately "observe" the true performance of a wine decades after its release. Basically the Heisenberg Principle applied to wine. Very interesting, but doesn't that make most of our observations...


...irrelevant?

[jal]

We can call it Schrodinger's wine, it's both dead and alive until we open the bottle.

[AKR]

As I enjoy this 2000 Lafon Rochet [St Estephe] even more on the 2nd night, I'm struck what a great era that was for enthusiasts. Most wines were still priced for the 99% yet broadly available, while being made in a range of styles for whatever palate preferences one had. For me, this 4th growth showed cool, lean fruit on day one with an edge of cranberry acidity, but 24 hours of air led to a rounder, more minty/oregano tone and just overall more delight. Tannin structure is all resolved. I had thought these were on the downslope, but perhaps I'm wrong about that. Extended cellaring of this property has not really paid off, for me, starting with 1990,1994,1996 and so on. After 2003 I stopped buying L-R, so what I have is what I'll enjoy. On my scorecard, a B+ but a lot of enjoyment.

I thought this might have been a French local market bottling run, but perhaps they had a global label.

========

I think the only vintage in that 2000-2009 cycle that underwhelmed was 2007, and even then I still found a few dry red wines I liked, and the Sauternes were good. And because I like the solar years, that decade included the gloriously zaftig 2003's, a freak that modern techniques might never permit again. I think the fullness of time, and the maturation of our cellars, has been kind to this decade.