Wine Words & Video Tape

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Bordeaux 2009 Primeurs: Pomerol

Written by JW. Posted in Bordeaux

2009 is a beautiful vintage here in Pomerol. Lovely wines full of attractive fruit with concentration and intensity. Extraction very much in check compared with St Emilion. Seductive and packed with fruit, these are wines that should be approachable early and some are already showing well. The following were tasted at Chateau Gazin as part of the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux tastings.

Bordeaux 2009 Primeurs: Rich wines in Margaux

Written by JW. Posted in Bordeaux

You might have imagined that a commune like Margaux, tending to have lighter, famously more gravelly soils, would struggle in a hot year like 2009. It is clear that heat stress on the vines did lead to some difficulties with grape ripening getting blocked, but this so-called ‘hydric stress’ did also act to slow down a harvest that otherwise may have completely runaway in alcohol, conditions that would have led to a corresponding evaporation of acidity. Denis Lurton of Chateau Desmirail believes that water stress was key in the vintage, ‘It kept the ripeness in check in the warm weather. The conditions gave us so much control to make different choices and it’s all about the choices. That helped us make a lovely wine. ’

Bordeaux 2009 Primeurs: Powerful St Estèphe

Written by JW. Posted in Bordeaux

The hot and dry vintage conditions in 2009 were ideal for the clay soils of St Estèphe. On the basis of the half-dozen wines that I tasted, St Estèphe looks to have had a excellent vintage. Chateau Lafon-Rochet in particular was outstanding, as were Chateau Ormes de Pez and Chateau Haut Marbuzet. The following wines [except for Haut Marbuzet] were tasted at the Union des Grand Cru tasting of the wines from St Estèphe at Chateau Batailley on 30 March and 1 April.

Bordeaux 2009 Primeurs: Seductive Haut-Médoc & Médoc

Written by JW. Posted in Bordeaux

 

A brilliant set of wines from the Haut-Médoc appellation in 2009. These should prove great value as many are out-performing themselves and show what a wonderful vintage this is amongst the supposedly ‘lesser’ Chateaux. There’s nothing lesser about the wines though. There is a suppleness and seductive quality that makes these wines so pleasurable already, but at the same time there is real intensity and concentration beneath which is disguised because of the exceptional ripeness of the fruit. I found nothing really loose here at all.

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