A couple okay 2000s: Pape Clement, d'Armailhac

[JimHow]

The d'Armailhac started off really slowly but came on at the very end. I think Jacques is right, this is a bit of a disappointment, but it salvaged a 90 score at the very end with some solid Pauillac traits.

The Pape Clement was still quite closed, not showing off a lot on either the nose or palate. It too came on a bit at the end, I'll give it 90 points. Not real impressive though, kind of like a technically correct but stylistically unexciting figure skating performance.

[Houndsong]

2000: a bust, or just in a weird place? We've heard one BWEr's opinion on this fairly recently.

[Claudius2]

Guys
Most recent 00 experience was Du Tertre which was disappointing.
May not have been a great bottle but the wine was a let down.
I was in Bordeaux in Sept/Oct 2000 during vintage.
The weather was mild and dry and the wines should be uniformly good.
I recall being at Lynch bages when the grapes were being loaded into the hopper. They were in beautiful condition, and a similar pattern was evident elsewhere.
The wines generally showed very well on initial tasting, but reviews of 2000 wines in international wine magazines have also been less than enthusiastic. in relative terms.

[stefan]

Yes, I also have some worries about 2000 on the left bank. Recent lesser estates we drank are Meyney and Beaumont. Beaumont is typically an early drinker, but I saved a couple of bottles. It is still a decent quaff but not as good as 5-8 years ago. Meyney, which I did not think would reach the level of the best vintages of this estate, has developed no better than I expected, although it likely will improve some. As Mark noted, the usually reliable du Tertre is not impressive. I hope it just needs more time as the underlying structure is sound, but that is a hope rather than an expectation.

[Nicklasss]

If the 2000's are not better than that, geeez all the critics are doomed! But it is weird that at 12 years old, still shut down? For their defense, I have to admit that the 1995 Chateau Rauzan-Segla was ''shut'' until that bottle I opened in 2011, so 16 years after the vintage. Previous bottles always let me down, so shut.

Or is it a plan, to have a price drop of the 2000's? So I agree, the 2000's sucks!

Nic

[Bacchus]

Gosh, lots of people reassessing 2000. I remember reading some entries on John Gilman's blog (View from the Cellar) a while back. He was comparing some 00s with their 01 counterparts and came to the conclusion that 01 was beginning to look better than 00. Mmmmmm -- 01s are about half the price of the 00s here; what few of them remain that is.

[JimHow]

The Pape Clement I drank was from half bottle.

[Houndsong]

A du Tertre I had a few years ago was excellent, but one more recently was pretty lean and closed. A Louviere I had shortly after release was excellent - one of the more notable bottles I've had - but one a year or two ago was like a caged ferret.

The Beychevelle was rich and soft from the get go and has remained so.

Other wines which seemed tight and light out of the box (Beau Site and Les Ormes de Pez) came around nicely. I've had some nice lesser RBs that have hung in from the start, but the Grand Corbin Despagne is another feral animal that shows no sign of wanting tamed.

The d'Angludet, which seems to have a strong reputation among critics and in-the-knows, has been terrible three bottles running. Terrible.

The Branaire Ducru seemed really fine back in '04 or so.

I'd say overall my experience has been positive with the 00s and I have had quite a few at the lower end but there have been a few wines that are just very ornery.

[finner]

I think the 2000's still have alot teen angst to shed. Kinda russian roulette right now.

[JimHow]

I've had good luck with the 2000s over the years, although I have not had many in the past couple years. I uncorked the d'Armailhac again tonight to focus on the wine.

[Claudius2]

Hound,
what does a caged ferret taste like?
Any different to an uncaged one?
Ha ha

[Claudius2]

Bacchus
I think 01 was undervalued as there were so many superlatives being thrown around over 00.
Yet I have to say that two crictics - Clive Coates and Decanter's panel, preferred many 01s over thei 00 counterparts.
Coates can be a bit of an Englsih pettifogger if you know the term, but he said that the 01 vintage was undervalued from the start, and that 00 was over-hyped due to the milennium hot air (which is fact shoulds have logically been for 01s - the previous century ended in 2000, as any mathmatician wil tell you).
Anyway, I have found 01 to be a hard vintage initially. The left bank wines have a lot of tannin, and I'm not sure all of the wines showed really ripe, fine, balanced tannins. When young, i found some a bit like 75 - some elvel of fruit but with overly hard tannins.
At 11 years, they are now softening. A recent Pontet Canet, Malescot anf GPL were showing more roundness, though the PC and GPL could have done with a bit more mid palate density. Yet they are still youing and may continue to improve with the structure being there.

Decanter tried a panel of 01 and 00s together, and the overall scores for both vintages were very similar - there was no clear winner despite 00 being expected to wipe the floor. The 01s were they hailed as a better than expected vintage with the panel being a bit split on the progress of 00.

having said that, I still have several cases of 00s such as GPL, LLC, Branaire, Clos Marquis, PC, etc and will leave them for some time.

[marcs]

I have done almost no direct verticals between 2000 and 2001, but in the one I did do -- 2000 vs. 2001 Pichon Baron -- the 2000 PB was clearly far superior.

Strange to see so many Bordeaux veterans here making the classic move of rushing to downgrade a vintage based on tasting it in adolesence. In my experience 2000 took a while to shut down -- I was having some terrific experiences in 2009 and 10 -- so it makes sense that it might be entering a closed period now. I had a 2000 Lynch Bages in 2009 that was absolutely fantastic, a benchmark wine for me, and another in 2011 that was comparatively mute. There was clearly something there but overall it was tannic and not special. If I had only tasted the second I could see thinking that it was an ordinary year.

[Claudius2]

Marc
I'm another Mark by the way just with a "k".
You are definitely correct - LB and PB (both same stable now) were excellent, which is why I quoted LB as a success.
Yet some recent attempts to drink 00s did not give me the idea that they were "just" shuttng down.
I normally think of 15-20 yrs as good maturity in a godd to great vintage, thus 12 yrs is not a big deal.
Yet I think that the 00 vintage based on recent experience isn't as uniformly good as expected.

Based on experience with 05s and 09s accepting they are both young, I think both are significantly better.

In any case, if you can get 01s at half the cosst, they why buy 00s??

[Houndsong]

Mark: Better than cat's pee!

Marc: I recall now the BD poured a 2000 LB a couple of years ago which was clearly special. I'm trying to recall whether I placed it in the "Holy Trinity" with the 99 Margaux and the 95 Cheval Blanc that evening.

[JimHow]

The 2000 d'Armailhac was nice last night. A solid Pauillac. Nothing that blew me away, but a solid 90 points.

[Bacchus]

Interesting stuff. By the way, has anyone tried the 01 PLL? Just wondering how it compares to the 00.

[Houndsong]

I omitted the '00 Duhart, which was really good. Up there.