Well, we are waiting with baited breath for the releases of the first growths in 2009. I’ve read that London’s Farr Vintners report that Chateau Lafite-Rothschild is already ‘pre-trading’ at £10,000 [$15000] a case. Blimey. I guess when you’ve got a worldwide army of wine investors chasing your wine that’s what happens. If Lafite is releasing anything near these prices you can bet Chateau Margaux and Chateau Latour will be up there too.

Here’s is a brief summary of the top Bordeaux 2009 wines I tasted in late March and early April.  Big caveats here in the selection. Although I did taste 160 plus 2009s, I didn’t get to all the Chateaux I wanted to in the trip. The most notable omissions in the Médoc were, Cos d’Estournel, Montrose, Latour, Pontet Canet, Ducru, Las Cases and Palmer, in Pessac-Léognan Haut-Brion and La Mission, in St Emilion Cheval Blanc and Ausone and the JP Moueix properties in Pomerol, obviously Pétrus, Lafleur-Pétrus and Trotanoy. I tasted most of the Sauternes with the exception of d’Yqyem and Climens. These taken together are clearly an important bunch! I hope to visit these properties in the coming months so news on them will follow when I do. Anyway, here are the scores of my best so far. Hope it’s useful.

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.