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Bordeaux 2009

It was turning out to be a fairly miserable week, weather-wise. Although my arrival in Bordeaux for the first day of the primeurs was marked by warm sunshine that saw me sauntering around in a short-sleeved shirt, the conditions soon took a turn for the worse. By day two the temperatures had fallen considerably and the rain was bucketing down. By day three I was negotiating floods in Libourne in order to reach the first tasting venue of the day; the Moueix offices on the quayside had been temporarily cut off by the Dordogne which had burst its banks such was the volume of water it was carrying. The local gendarmerie had, quite sensibly I suspect, sealed off the road down towards the building where Christian Moueix and his son Edouard were pouring their wines.

It was all a long cry from the conditions during the growing season of 2009, which was more marked by dry weather and sunshine than rain and storms - although as my notes below reveal, the year was certainly not free of inclement weather.

Vintage Review

A proper winter. A proper spring. And a proper summer. That was the message from the winemakers and proprietors during my visit to Bordeaux for this year's primeurs. The winter that gripped Bordeaux as 2008 rolled into 2009 was colder than the norm, good for many reasons. It kills vineyard pests and forces the vine into dormancy, the sap falls and pruning can get underway. This is important with so many millions of vines to prune; I was reminded of this during this most recent of primeur tasting weeks, when I saw a number of vineyards still being pruned in the last week of March, even though elsewhere some vines were beginning to bud. This wasn't a problem in 2009 though; the frosty nights kept the vines slumbering until early April. Eventually the vines did bud though, of course, the Merlots first, the Cabernets lagging behind - considerably so.

Summer soon arrived, and for many the weeks and months progressed in a relaxed fashion, warm and with appropriate rainfall. For many, but not for all. In May a devastating storm landed on the right bank, moving across the Bourg and Blaye appellations, then across the southern Médoc and into Graves. Many proprietors will tell you of the hailstones, reportedly as big as golf balls, damaging cars, buildings and of course vines. The worst destruction was north of St Emilion and in the Entre-Deux-Mers appellation, the latter perhaps of minor interest to buyers chasing the top 80-or-so chateaux which represent Bordeaux on international markets, but for the growers affected, and for the négociants who rely on these vineyards to source grapes and must - especially Sauvignon Blanc - for their blends, it was a catastrophe. All the vineyard managers could do was hope that the vines would recover and rebud, but what came was largely too little, too late. A few famous names were also affected; at Trottevieille for instance, total production in the 2009 vintage amounts to less than 700 cases.

Once this tragedy had passed those vines which had escaped the hail flowered and the summer settled into a warm routine which carried the vines and their developing and then ripening grapes through to harvest time. The rainfall was a little sparse at times, delaying the progression of growth and ripening, but on the whole it went well. As is often the case, however, it is the weather during September and October - harvest time - that makes the vintage. With the arrival of these months the rain fell away, and the days became warmer, the temperatures increasing right up until the fruit was ready for harvest. But when to pick was a difficult call to make in many vineyards; whilst the sugar levels rose and reached perfect ripeness, the grapes themselves were still not physiologically ripe, the pips and stalks still verdant green. There was no inclement weather to force the hand of the Bordelais, as the sky remained vibrant and blue, and thus it was down to the winemaking team at each chateau to decide when to pick. Too soon, with the fear of rising sugar concentrations and high alcohol levels and there was the potential for harvesting grapes with unripe flavours and tannins. Wait too long, and whilst the tannins would be ripe the alcohol could rocket to a sky-high level. Both issues come through on tasting the wines - on which more below.

As for the Sauternes, the weather here was also very favourable it seems, and from a meteorological point of view the vintage was set up not only for very good red wines, but also sweet whites. The Sauvignon and Semillon (and also Muscadelle) vines need not only good weather but also the right conditions for engendering botrytis; although many wine texts discuss this in the context of romantic early morning mists rolling up from the Ciron, what many Sauternes proprietors will look for is rain. When I visited Cheval Blanc manager Pierre Lurton - who also runs Yquem on behalf of the LVMH group - told us of his excitement at seeing the rains arrive at just the right moment, fostering a rampant growth of botrytis on the fruit, just at the right time.

Summing up then, the soundbites for the 2009 vintage are as follows

• A proper winter, spring and summer
  Particularly, a protracted summer of very stable temperatures
• Hailstorms for some
  Hailstones the size of golf balls ruined the vintage for a number of estates around St Emilion, the Côtes appellations and Entre-Deux-Mers
• A warm harvest
  Uncharacteristically warm and dry harvest months made for comfortable picking but with the potential of very high sugar, alcohol and/or tannin levels

Tasting the Wines

In this vintage the harvesting decision is intrinsically tied up with the taste of the wine, so the two should be discussed together. The Merlots were generally picked in early October, the Cabernets started in mid-October. The former variety, earlier-ripening, seemed to be the most susceptible to high sugar levels and thus alcohol levels too. But all the varieties displayed an excess of other components also; many displayed high levels of tannins, broadly assessed by the Indice des Polyphénols Totaux (IPT) - which in truth measures tannin plus anthocyanin, so it reflects overall extraction of colour as well as tannin. For example, at Cos d'Estournel the IPT in 2009 is 99 compared to 80 in 2008. The acidity levels are not so low as you might expect, e.g. again at Cos the total acidity is 3.1 g/l in 2009 and was 3.6 g/l in 2008, the pHs being 3.69 versus 3.57 respectively (lower pH with higher acidity). The acidity found in 2009 is generally higher than in other warm vintages such as 2003, but not as high as they were in 2005. And so although you might describe the vintage as 'balanced' - and indeed there are many wines that seem to achieve that, despite their huge substance - the combination of fabulous texture and extract, outstripping that which I recall from tasting the 2005s at this stage, in combination with lower acidity than that vintage, does strongly influence the character of a number of the 2009s.

So is it the Vintage of the century it was caimed to be by some almost as soon as the grapes were harvested? Well, the answer to that question is complicated. Yes, there are some stunning wines in this vintage, majestic efforts with balance and power paradoxically combined, and these wines, estates and winemakers deserve due respect. There are also many good wines one or two rungs down the ladder, wines that have succeeded in maintaining freshness and balance along with true character. But, as I have already expounded in my first report, there is more to a great vintage than a few great wines. The 2009 vintage is also a story of inconsistency, with a number of very weird, extracted and most of all overtly alcoholic wines out there, There is not the broad success that was found in 2005. Be prepared for a variety of opinions on this from the critics though; some sources are happy simply to cheer and banner-wave, especially when they maintain close relationships with the proprietors, but even where opinion is more considered there are inconsistencies. I have already seen one tweet awarding high praise to a wine I marked down, unimpressed by its sweet fruit and thick-chewy tannins, but most of all I was put off by the obvious seam of alcohol within the wine. Perhaps some palates are just less sensitive to this component of wine? There are some wines that seem particularly set up to divide opinion - watch out for opinions on Cos d'Estournel, this wine being the front-runner in that race.

I have already mentioned the dry whites and Sauternes in my first report. The style of the vintage gives the wines high alcohol levels, although in some places specific measures to target this have had some effect. At Margaux, for instance, where Pavillon Blanc has seen alcohol levels exceeding 15% in some recent vintages; this year, changes in viticultural management led by technical directer Paul Pontallier have brought this cuvée down to a more reasonable and fresher 13.9% despite the warmth of the vintage. The acidity within the finished wines (let us remind ourselves - these are unfinished barrel samples, not finished wines) is the crunch here; if you prefer zip and vibrancy of structure this might not be the vintage for you, although if you prefer rich flavours with certainly present but perhaps rather less lively acidity then 2009 could be a good buy, depending on price of course. One note of caution though; my white Pessac notes are small in number, so these thoughts are based on few data points. As for the Sauternes, I think these are fabulous wines. Rich in flavour, with good acid backbone, not as vibrant as the 2007 vintage but with the payoff of a much deeper seam of fruit and flavour, full of honey and mango and citrus fruits. And, importantly, there are traces of botrytis too, even at this early stage. These wines, depending on the release prices of course, should be excellent buys. (6/4/10)