Blog

Bordeaux 2009. Go on…you know you want to…
October 26th, 2009

bordeaux1

Let’s face it, it’s a bit hard not to get excited about Bordeaux 2009. Every year the growers do a pretty good job of leaking good news about the vintage, even when good news is thin on the ground. We are programmed to resist the hype…but we are not superhuman, and so even we are feeling a touch weak at the knees about the noise coming out of Bordeaux regarding the latest vintage.

Over the following weeks we will keep you in touch with all the goings on, especially as our team has several visits planned out there. If you’d like to hear some of the early thoughts on the vintage, we find Jane Anson’s New Bordeaux blog to be immensely useful. There’s nothing like getting the authentic and unbiased views of someone who is based in Bordeaux.

While we wait for more news, we can report on some of our tasting highlights from the 2007 UGC tasting in London last week. Interestingly, while there were many good examples of the vintage on show, much of the chat in the hall was about the 2009 vintage.

Here are Camilla’s short 2007 notes:

Carbonnieux blanc – quite muted nose; lemon peel; focused; good length, mid weight, tangy
Domaine de Chevalier blanc – richer and fatter than many of the dry whites; good depth of fruit but refined
Smith Haut Lafitte blanc – mineral waxy tightly knit nose, smooth and well integrated if not as impressive as Chevalier
Haut Bailly – chocolately deep fruity nose, blueberries, molasses; finesse, elegance, good length
Dauzac – dark chunky fruit; quite weighty; good value
Canon – quite closed nose, ripe sweet juicy fruit; dependable
Berliquet – fragrant quite sweet fruit, refreshing acidity, relatively light but with enough backbone; good value
Pavie Macquin – smoky oak well integrated; elegance; almost delicate
Gazin – rich but not sweet fruit; well structured;
Lascombes – open fresh seductive nose; ripeness of tannin; well balanced
Rauzan Segla – soft delicate perfumed nose ; richness combined with elegance; very good
Gruaud Larose – juicy berry fruit with pleasant fragrant notes, relatively light but not lacking body
Leoville Barton -  typical Barton; very good; benchmark St Julien
Lynch Bages – meaty quite savoury nose; classic; restraint; not trying too hard
Pichon Baron – rich, generous, but with floral lift on the nose
Pontet Canet – quite muted nose; elegance; some dried fruit character; rich almost treacly fruit; powerful; plenty of tannic grip; for longer ageing than most?

One for your diary – the Bibendum Annual Bordeaux Tasting next year will take place on 21st April.

By Dan
Entry Filed under: Bordeaux, Fine wine, Wine tastings

Leave a Comment

Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Trackback this post  |  Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed