2007 Bordeaux... Thoughts.

[JonoB]

From what I have tried they seem quite approachable and drinkable, and in a sense resemble a riper 97 in my mind.

However, there are a lot of 07s coming onto the market, at prices that seem so much better than 09, some 08s (firsts) and probably impending prices of 10s.

Anyway think it would be a bad idea to pick up some 07s? I should guess they might get cheaper eith merchants wanting space to fill up with 08s on arrival soon and to pay for 2010s... What are the impressions?

[JimHow]

Coincidentally, Jono, I was sitting in the South Paris District Court this morning, a little country courthouse in western Maine that is the site of much of the courtroom drama in my novel, and I was wondering the same thing. The few 2007s I've had have been pleasant-- Lagrange, Smith Haut Lafite, Branaire Ducru, etc.-- but they are quite expensive-- I'm not interested in paying $70+ for a pleasant Leoville Barton, or $90+ for a pleasant Lynch. I'll save my money for the much less expensive 2008s instead. If the 2007s become available at blow out prices a la 1997, though (amazing how history repeats itself, 1997 was also a "pleasant" vintage that was overpriced upon release), then I might be interested in buying some 2007s.

[Chasse-Spleen]

I think you will find few great deals on '07s on the shelves, in terms of classed growths. If there's one thing the Bordelais know, it's how to put their wine in a market that will make money for them. I would think you'll see a lot of '07s on restaurant menus. It seems to me that a lot of vintages just seem to skip the stores in NYC. We get all the vintages of the century and the decent but high priced ones. You have to go up to Zachy's to get the '01s, the '02s, the (bleh) '04s. Of course, Sherry-Lehman will have '07 Pichon Baron for $100 or something like that.

But Jim, they have the '06 Lynch at Warehouse for $60 - I've never seen a lower price (recenty or since the '99 was $50) than that other than in Stefan's post on how he picked up two cases of the what vintage was that? For $45? or was it $35? Some people have all the luck...

-Chasse

[BordeauxKassett]

Anyone had the Cantemerle '07? It's now available here in Norway at an affordable price (if you don't take into account alcohol tax and the Wine Monopoly fees).

[JonoB]

Cantermerle is always good value... And of a good quality. I doubt you'll be disappointed with the drink, but maybe with how much you paid for it.

[JimHow]

They list it at $19.99 in New Hampshire but do not seem to have ever had it in stock.

[BordeauxKassett]

Hm, I guess 42 US$ is no bargain then...

[JimHow]

A couple months ago I paid $29 for the 2005 Cantemerle, BordeauxKassett, plus an additional 15% off for a case discount. It has been my go-to wine in the past month, I've only got one left. I'm going to buy some more.

[alchemeus]

I've had several 2005 Bordeaux, all have been very satisfactory to excellent. Many have been less than $20, some less that $15. Just good damn wine. Comparitively. Smooth yet complex and drinkable but with the ability to last. Damn fine year it seems. Drink around any you have and keep your 2005's.

Just me.

[Claudius2]

Guys
I went to a big wine fair in Singapore a few weeks ago.
There were heaps of 07 Bordeaux and Burgs, though few famous Bordeaux (seemed to be mainly lower classed wines and CBs).
There were heaps of top rated Burgs, but I'm glad I largely avoided 07.
I bought one lone case of red Burg from 07 and no Bordeaux at all.

The 07 Burgs were lightish, rather simple and some had slightly green tannins.
The were rather hollow in the middle and whilst a few were pleasant (I mean GCs like Chambertin, Bonnes Mares, etc) they don;t cut it as serious wines in their price range.
Also tried a few 04s and they were shockers - even worse than I recalled them. So I've sent all my 04 red Burgs to auction.
Stick to 05.

The 07 Bordeaux were on par with 97 if that. Possibly more like 92 or 93.
A few 06s tried side by side showed 06 to be comparatively very good - more red than black fruits (compared to 05) though with good density and some interest.
medium bodied.
The 07s simply lacked interest. There was not a wine I would have thought twice about buying.
In fact, the only wine I did by was Spanish....

The international boards talk of 07 in polite terms - you know, challenging vintage yet pleasant wines, nice whilst waiting for 05 to mature.
Well sorry. I have not tried the very top wines but even some classed growths were crap.
Light, inoffensive and boring.
Unless you try first, pass.
There are too many good vintages around to bother.
07 is the worst vintage of the decade and by some margin.

[Bacchus]

Hello,

I am new here -- just registered. I found the site during a search for comments on the 2004 Pontet Canet and the 2006 Duhart Milon. I live in Newfoundland, Canada's easternmost province, where we suffer from high prices and limited availability due to the government monopoly/control of all things alcoholic! I'm newish to Bordeaux (after drinking new world stuff for many years), and this looks like a good place to learn, and hopefully contribute too. Reading this thread raises a couple of questions:

1) What's wrong with the 2004 vintage? I noticed a couple of people express reservations about it. I ask because yesterday I opened a bottle of '04 Leoville Barton for dinner and thought it was very good indeed: vibrant nose, good fruit (some red and some black), some mineral, bit of leaf, touches of cassis and leather, good weight (without going all aussie), and good length. I thought it was a pretty good wine actually.

2) That being said, if I had the opportunity to pick up either 1/2 case of '04 Pontet Canet, or 1/2 case of '06 Duhart Milon, and the price was roughly the same, which??

3)@alchemeus: would you happen to have a list of those affordable wines you refer to above. I'm always interested in good, affordable Bordeaux.

[JimHow]

Welcome to the site, Bacchus, we have several Canadians here, it's always good to have more. I'm from Maine, an honorary province of Canada.

I don't think there is universal agreement here that 2004 is a poor vintage. Some are higher on it than others, although I'm guessing a majority here think it is one of the less compelling vintages of the past decade.

I have had both the 2004 Pontet-Canet and the 2006 Duhart Milon, each several times. Those are two of our favorite estates here on BWE. Which one do I prefer? Boy, for me, that's a toss-up. Seriously, you can't go wrong with either one. The '04 Pontet-Canet has an appealing sternness to it that I like. I'm about to buy a dozen half-bottles from PJ's Wine Warehouse in NYC at $26 per bottle. The 2006 Duhart Milon was recently available for $43 at PJs, but just as I was getting ready to buy more, it sold out. With Duhart, we are dealing with a lot of competition from Asia.

I honestly can't say which I prefer, they are both my kind of wines. It's like trying to decide between Tom Brady or Peyton Manning.

Again, welcome aboard!

[JonB]

Bacchus - welcome. I have several Newfie friends......and lots of Newfie jokes!

While everyone has their own taste buds, early on several 2004s I tasted had a fresh, crunchy fruit characteristic that I found unusual.

That characteristic has now largely disappeared, and there's some nice wines that show sufficient fruit and minerality but not a lot of structure. Time will tell more, but the prices were reasonable and quality was relatively consistent and for those reasons a good year to explore broadly if you don't have familiarity with Bordeaux.

[JonoB]

Claudius, which was the highest rated (classed) wine available at the tasting.

I've tried Pichon-Lalande, Duhart-Milon, Mouton, Les Forts de Latour, De Pez, Petit Bocq, Lagrange & Calon-Segur recently, and they were very nice, not amazing but very drinkable... I.e much better than you have deceived them... It may also be a palate thing.

With Burgundy, it is utterly wrong to write off any vintage. Burgundy is not about power and fruit, it is about subtlety, and unless the wine tastes of meat, iron and earth, it will need a lot of time. I think 07s won't be like most Burgs and there are issues with some 04s... With 07 they need 15-20 years IMHO. the best 04s and there aren't as many as one would like will need another 5-10 to show really well but are drinkable.

[Bacchus]

Thanks for the warm welcome. I've been to Maine a couple of times JimHow. Fabulous place. And like my home province, so very east coast. How do you know Newfoundland JonB? You wouldn't be an ex-pat?

Just as a point of interest, other '04s I've enjoyed include Domaine de Chevalier, Sociando Mallet and Pape Clement. The one real advantage of the '04 vintage, of course, is it's affordability. And considering Canadian pricing in general, the difference is really real!

Haven't tried any '07s yet. Since almost every source I've read, print and on-line, says they are to be avoided, I've accepted that advice. Instead, I've looked to pick up earlier vintages where possible. Just a couple of weeks ago I was in a small liquor store in a small town outside St. John's (where I live) and noticed 6 bottles of the 2000 Pontet Canet on the manager's desk inside his office! When I asked if they were for sale he said sure. They're now in my cellar (doing my happy dance now).

[JimHow]

Well done, Bacchus, well done. We had a BWE dinner in midtown Manhattan with Pontet Canet owner Alfred Tesseron a few years ago, featuring the vintages 1994 to 2004. The 2000 was one of the stars that night. It will benefit from another five to ten years in the cellar though.

[Bacchus]

I've never met Alfred Tesseron. Newfoundland is a little out of the way for any regular visitations from folks like that. Mind you, a year ago I had the opportunity to drink through most of Kilikanoon's reds with Kevin Mitchell. Powerful stuff that -- "confected" to be sure. Kevin, by the way, is a really nice guy; very friendly and quite talkative.

[Blanquito]

I didn't try a lot of either 2004 or 2006 on release, but of what I tried, I preferred the 2004. 2004 seem nicely aromatic, nothing to stern or green, probably an early drinking vintage a la 1985. La Lagune wa especially fine in 2004!

[Tarzan the Grape man]

There are a few good 2007's for the money out there at the lower price end. Phèlan Segur and Certan de May being a couple. I am new to this forum. Is it ok to show where these wines are being sold at good prices?

[JimHow]

Sure Tarzan, that's not a problem.

[Tarzan the Grape man]

OK. Not sure what shipping costs are like with this company, but I have always found them good value and always have great quality. www.farrvintners.com This is the link to their current good offers:
http://www.farrvintners.com/offer.php?offerid=249

[Claudius2]

Jono
I tried the 06 and 07 Lagrange side by side.
The 06 was not great but was a much better wine, and simple CBs from 05 tasted better to me than CGs from 07.
Okay, at a big tasting, I acept that the diferences show up too much.
Like the lighter wines seem very light and your palate gets wasted.
But I consciously tasted them as carefully as I can.
There were about twenty Bordeaux from 07, and only a handful of classed growths.
I actually thought the St Emilions and Pomerols from 07 tasted a bit richer - but maybe a developmental issue.

Bacchus
It is 04 red Burgs not Bordeaux that is green.
I actually think 04 in Bordeaux is a good to very good vintage similar to say 01 or 06.

The reds in Burgundy are green and vegetal, and not just a few wines.
It is a nasty peppery taste on the palate and they remin me of Loire reds from poor vintages.

[JonoB]

Claudius, there are plenty of not green peppery 04 burgs...

Granted, I think that 06 is a better vintage in both Burg and Bord, but the 07s and 04 Burgs are not disasters... Like any poor vintage, you need to look for the stars... But look at 97 Poujeaux or 93 Mouton or 91 Latour, great wines in poor vintages. At the end of the day in burg, until they properly matured, people were talking of 01 and 00 burgs are they talk of 04 and 07 now! Burg buffs do not... Because they know that Burgundy is not about fruit ( and to be fair neither is good Bordeaux) it is about terroir.

Bordeaux 07 is just pleasant but at the lower end I have preferred 07 to homogenous 05s (Alex will be on my case now). De Pez and Petit Bocq 07 at big and small tastings were better than their 05 side by side. For me, fruit is not the be all and end all of wine, neither is tannin, but balance is the key. That is why I have a problem with a lot of 09s... They aren't balanced, especially in St. Emilion. You can have super ripe tannic wines, but they won't be any good or ageworthy if they don't have rasping acid... And this is one of the main reasons that I have explored Italy, as more and more in France become Parkerised.

P.S if you want good Loire reds, email Jim Budd, because although pricy, Loire reds ESP, Sancerre can rival if not outdo their Burg counterparts at the top end.

[AKR]

conventional cork closure, perfect shape, sediment in bottle shoulder

Generally, I tend to pass on lighter, non collectible vintages of all regions which is a bias which has of pros and cons (worthy of oh so much debate) but in 2007 I did put away a few Bordeaux to mark that year. The scant few I've opened over the years have performed weakly, confirming the initial professional suspicions of a softer, restaurant style year -- some have been frankly poor/low quality. But this 2007 La Confession [St Emilion] has been a real surprise to the upside, with no suggestion - if I was tasting it blind - that it was the product of a challenging Indian summer year. These tend to be on the low alcohol side as the vines channel the late arriving solar energy into preparing for winter rather than the hanging fruit. This is 13.5% abv, low for the modern era, and especially for this vintner/era, given Janouiex's preference for late harvesting and ripeness. The nose shows modern balanced oak, vanilla, black plums with a sweet juicy dense palate. This avoids the hollowness some wines from this year had, especially as a taster holds the wine in the mouth. The flavor is richer than I'd expect and I would not consider this 'off vintage' at all. Sure the finish doesn't go on for miles, but it's a solid citizen. In some ways, it reminds me of the best 97's and 99's, in the ways how the producer transcended the weather/sun issues, and went on to make a fine quality wine. At age 16 this should be drunk up, but it will not dismay the holder. It's interesting watching how the Cellartracker comments have improved over the years; I can certainly believe that it was initially a big oaky underfruited mess. I like the Janouiex wines, as modern as they are and I would note that they keep very well as personally experienced by 20+ year old de Chambrun's and la Croix st Georges. I'd give this a B to B+ grade, which is high for the cool temperatures of the year.

color looks dark at first but upon a close inspection is garnet

[JimHow]

Boy, talk about a thread from the past.

[Comte Flaneur]

Arv does us all a great service by specialising in digging out such venerable discussions.

[Jay Winton]

I think his hound does the digging.

[robert goulet]

Hello,

I am new here -- just registered. I found the site during a search for comments on the 2004 Pontet Canet and the 2006 Duhart Milon. I live in Newfoundland, Canada's easternmost province, where we suffer from high prices and limited availability due to the government monopoly/control of all things alcoholic! I'm newish to Bordeaux (after drinking new world stuff for many years), and this looks like a good place to learn, and hopefully contribute too. Reading this thread raises a couple of questions:

1) What's wrong with the 2004 vintage? I noticed a couple of people express reservations about it. I ask because yesterday I opened a bottle of '04 Leoville Barton for dinner and thought it was very good indeed: vibrant nose, good fruit (some red and some black), some mineral, bit of leaf, touches of cassis and leather, good weight (without going all aussie), and good length. I thought it was a pretty good wine actually.

2) That being said, if I had the opportunity to pick up either 1/2 case of '04 Pontet Canet, or 1/2 case of '06 Duhart Milon, and the price was roughly the same, which??

3)@alchemeus: would you happen to have a list of those affordable wines you refer to above. I'm always interested in good, affordable Bordeaux.

2004 is a wonderful vintage and 2004 L. Barton is a cracker!!

[robert goulet]

Claudius, there are plenty of not green peppery 04 burgs...

Granted, I think that 06 is a better vintage in both Burg and Bord, but the 07s and 04 Burgs are not disasters... Like any poor vintage, you need to look for the stars... But look at 97 Poujeaux or 93 Mouton or 91 Latour, great wines in poor vintages. At the end of the day in burg, until they properly matured, people were talking of 01 and 00 burgs are they talk of 04 and 07 now! Burg buffs do not... Because they know that Burgundy is not about fruit ( and to be fair neither is good Bordeaux) it is about terroir.

Bordeaux 07 is just pleasant but at the lower end I have preferred 07 to homogenous 05s (Alex will be on my case now). De Pez and Petit Bocq 07 at big and small tastings were better than their 05 side by side. For me, fruit is not the be all and end all of wine, neither is tannin, but balance is the key. That is why I have a problem with a lot of 09s... They aren't balanced, especially in St. Emilion. You can have super ripe tannic wines, but they won't be any good or ageworthy if they don't have rasping acid... And this is one of the main reasons that I have explored Italy, as more and more in France become Parkerised.

P.S if you want good Loire reds, email Jim Budd, because although pricy, Loire reds ESP, Sancerre can rival if not outdo their Burg counterparts at the top end.

Plenty of lovely '07 burgs...I've had some killer Volnay's from '07...some nice '04's too

[Claudius2]

Robert
Scratching my head a little to recall all this.
The tasting I referred to did not show much of interest in 2007.
I’ve drunk a few 2007 Bordeaux since then were quite good but 2007 will always be a lesser vintage.

As for Burgundy I still don’t think much of 2004 or 2007 accepting that there are always some outliers.

In the meantime I’m also not mad on 2004 in Bordeaux either with the usual caveats.

Cheers
Mark

[jal]

I have had only good to great experience with 2007 Burgundy. Critics panned it, I bought and loved everything I tried from that vintage. To his credit Eric Asimov did say the wines were charming and can be drunk early.

[Comte Flaneur]

I have had only good to great experience with 2007 Burgundy. Critics panned it, I bought and loved everything I tried from that vintage. To his credit Eric Asimov did say the wines were charming and can be drunk early.

I agree with Jacques. We did two 07 burgundy tastings before Covid and the vintage came up trumps both times. The wines are forward and delicious in my experience. A really useful and delightful vintage. It also is half decent in the northern Rhone too. But in the southern Rhone a bit of a mess.
I have had less experience actually with 2007 Bordeaux but I would definitely classify it as a restaurant vintage. Or to damn it even more, a French supermarket vintage. Having said that, Leoville Barton fashioned a decent 2007. But it is the only vintage between 1993 and 2020 in which I don’t own any Bordeaux wine (the only 2013 I own is a magnum of Ygrec).

[stefan]

I have not had an exciting 2007 Bordeaux, though some have been decent. The few 2007 Burgundies I drank were not very good. I should have gotten Jacques' recommendations early enough to buy some.

When I want a 2007, I look toward Tuscany.

[jal]

These were amazing in 2007:
Every d'Angerville Volnay
Mugnier NSG Clos de la Marechale
Roumier Morey St Denis Clos de la Bussiere
Bachelet (all the spectrum)
Clavelier Chambolle Combe d'Orveau

And a bunch of others that were just good. Also, in 2009-2010 when these came out the prices were still very reasonable.

[stefan]

Ah! All these have had huge price increases since then.

[jckba]

I only bought 1 wine in 2007 and that was a case of the Montrose which I picked up for under $50/per upon release from Wildman through their Compagnie Medocaine arm and it has been a good claret styled quaffer. I’ll post a note the next time I pull one as I should have several left but otherwise and keeping them for future verticals.