Bordeaux 2009 En Primeur Buyer’s Guide: 20 Questions & Answers
May 25th 2010, by Gavin
Such is the demand for top Bordeaux from great years that the best wines from the two previous outstanding vintages, 2000 and 2005, have gone up substantially in value, despite the economic downturn. Here are my answers to 20 questions about the much-hyped 2009s.
1. Is Bordeaux 2009 ‘the vintage of a lifetime’?
I hope so, because we lost 80% of our crop in two hailstorms in May 2009. Apart from this minor detail, the weather was brilliant, all the way through to the end of the harvest in mid-October. I suppose that makes me well qualified to say, after watching the weather and tasting wines ‘En Primeur’ for ten years here, I have never witnessed such superb conditions for the harvest in Bordeaux and sampled so many outstanding young wines the following Spring. Many leading Châteaux have made their greatest ever wines, especially on the Left Bank.
That doesn’t mean to say you should buy the wines, if prices are too high. Fortunately, outside a relatively small circle of estates that could sell their 2009 production several times over regardless of price, there are many outstanding wines that are worth buying in 2009.
Top Bordeaux: Investment of the Decade
December 10th 2009, by Gavin
Here’s a sobering thought at this time of year, especially if you’ve been drinking your stock of old Lafite. A report in the Guardian, entitled ‘How alternative investments have fared since 2000′, showed that the top wines from Bordeaux have been the best investment since 2000, ‘earning returns that far outstripped equities, gold and property.’
In short, the ‘Big Eight’ – Lafite, Latour, Margaux, Mouton, and Haut-Brion (the five First Growths from the Left Bank) along with Pétrus from Pomerol, and Cheval Blanc and Ausone from St-Emilion (all Right Bank), have all proved to be solid performers.
Saint-Emilion on the Left Bank. In Paris.
September 5th 2008, by Gavin
One perk of being an accidental wine critic (for Wine & Spirit magazine) is that I get invited to taste some very good wines in lovely surroundings. This time it was a line-up of mature (or maturing) vintages of Premiers Grands Crus Classés from Saint Emilion in a private dining room at the Hotel Plaza Athénée in Paris. With the TGV taking just 3 hours from Bordeaux – and costing around €60 each way for a first class ‘IDTGV’ ticket booked over the web – it’s an easy and affordable day trip. The lunch was arranged by the Groupement de PGCCs de St-Emilion for a handful of wine writers from around the world to meet the owners of the 14 chåteaux involved. For me, there was the added advantage of catching up with people like Neal Martin (above right, chatting to Philippe Castéja of Château Trottevielle, with Nicolas Thienpont of Pavie Macquin looking on). Neal has had a meteoric rise to wine-writing stardom since his Wine-Journal website was merged into erobertparker.com a couple of years ago.
Saint-Emilion Classification: a French Farce
July 6th 2008, by Gavin
The long running saga concerning the re-classication of the top estates of St-Emilion took another twist this week when a court in Bordeaux ruled against the recently revised rankings. The whole affair has been widely reported, as in The Daily Telegraph, and by Sophie Kevany on decanter.com. Wikipedia’s current entry on this debacle is now right up-to-date and includes the useful, but now suspended, 2006 classification.