June 23, 2010

Before Primeurs began, the Bordeaux hype machine was in full swing, with many vintners declaring 2009 to be “The Vintage of the Century.”  But is it really?

Every March, the world’s leading wine merchants, critics and writers assemble in Bordeaux to taste for the first time the fruits of the previous harvest.  This four-day tasting marathon, called Bordeaux Primeurs, gives the Bordeaux chateaux an opportunity to present their wines to the world.  Likewise, it gives the world an opportunity to assess the quality of the vintage and which wines are most worth pursuing.
 
For Montesquieu, which was represented at Primeurs this year by President Fonda Hopkins, Winemaker Hélène Mingot and Communications Manager Stephen George, it was an opportunity to deepen relationships with producers, to forge new relationships, and to get an exclusive taste of top wines that are not offered to the general market.
 
But just as importantly, attending Primeurs helps Montesquieu to keep a finger on the pulse of the wine industry by tasting first-hand the new vintage that everyone is wondering about.  As anyone who follows wine trends knows already, well before Primeurs began the Bordeaux hype machine was in full swing, with many proprietors declaring 2009 to be “The Vintage of the Century.”  But is it really? 2009 certainly offered exceedingly favorable growing and harvest conditions that produced fruit with immense potential.  The question was whether the “once-in-a-lifetime vintage” fanfare would be justified by the final product. (Recall that similar statements were made about 2000 and 2005.  Have there really been three “vintages of the century” in the century’s first decade?)
 
Assessing these claims is made all the more difficult by the fact that none of the 2009 Bordeaux red wines are yet finished.  At Primeurs, chateaux bring in barrel samples of their wines, many of which still have several years of barrel aging ahead of them, not to mention racking, fining and filtering, among other steps in the winemaking process.  As such, much guesswork is involved in evaluating the quality of a particular wine – and the vintage it comes from – so early in its lifecycle.  After all, the important question is not how does the wine taste now, but how will it taste in two years once it’s bottled and released on the market, and how will that bottle then taste once it’s reached maturity?
 
These are complicated issues to discern, and the answers one reaches are highly dependent on one’s personal taste and experience.  As with all wine evaluation, what is intriguing to one person may be off-putting to another, and what may seem to one person to be a slight imbalance that will resolve itself with age may seem to another to be a fatal flaw in the wine. Take, for instance, the 2009 Vieux Maillet from Pomerol.  Wine Spectator’s Bordeaux expert James Suckling rated the wine 92-95 points, calling it “very well done.”  By contrast, The Wine Advocate’s Bordeaux expert Neil Martin rated the wine 80-82 points, saying it showed “unavoidable prune/raisin notes” and “lack[ed] freshness.”  Or consider the wildly controversial 2009 Cos d’Estournel from Saint Estephe – some critics raved that it was one of the wines of the vintage and gave it near-perfect ratings, while others were disappointed and even dismayed by what they considered to be over-extraction and a lack of finesse in the wine.   
   
This kind of disparity underscores the fact that experiences with wine are inherently subjective, varying from person to person, and not effectively captured by a scoring system that assigns value to a wine with a single, static number.  Unfortunately, numerical wine ratings still hold market power disproportionate to their usefulness and reliability.  But as high-profile differences of opinion like Vieux Maillet and Cos d’Estournel proliferate, more and more consumers are realizing that a wine’s story and the experiences it offers are far more important than mere scores.
 
If scores of the 2009s can vary so widely, what’s a Bordeaux lover to do?  The best thing is to listen to people whose palates you trust and who have tasted the wines themselves.  That’s one reason it’s important for Montesquieu representatives to be present each year at Primeurs – so we can inform curious clients of what to expect out of 2009 and bring in for them wines that show the best of the vintage.
 
So what do we at Montesquieu think of 2009 Bordeaux? Based on our tastings at Primeurs, we could give a laundry list of our favorite wines, which would include Pavie Macquin, Clos Fourtet and Figeac from St. Emilion; Gruaud Larose and Leoville Barton from St. Julien; Smith Haut Lafitte from Pessac-Leognan; Brane-Cantenac and Prieuré-Lichine from Margaux; and Pichon-Longueville from Pauillac.  But the far more interesting assessment, especially at this early stage, is of the vintage as a whole rather than individual wines.
 
Briefly put, Bordeaux 2009 is a tale of two styles. Both have richness and power, but the first style – which we prefer – remains fresh, vibrant, and elegant; the other style is extracted, thick and loaded with alcohol.  Thanks to plentiful sun, warm temperatures and a perfect harvest season, this past year almost every producer was blessed with fully ripe grapes. And therefore, almost every wine is powerful and intense with ample tannins and sugars.  But as we tasted through the wines of each appellation, it was clear again and again that those chateaux that managed to retain the acidity and freshness in their grapes by picking judiciously and handling them gently got balanced and lively wines; while those chateaux that picked late and/or over-extracted their grapes got cocktails of oak, tannin, and alcohol that were more obvious and brutish than delicate or refined. Among this latter group are a number of very famous houses, including many in the commune of St. Estephe.  Not surprisingly, many in the industry loved these wines, while we – along with Stéphane Derenoncourt, a Bordeaux winemaker and member of our buying team, and others who prefer Bordeaux to taste like Bordeaux (rather than Aussie Shiraz or Napa Cab) – rather disliked them.
 
All of this means that especially with 2009 Bordeaux, consumers must be wary of trusting a score or any single critic when making purchasing decisions.  The vintage produced some sublime wines that will become legendary; but it also produced some bizarrely ripe and overwrought wines that, although impressive now to some critics, may not age well at all.  So unlike 2000 or 2005 where the quality level was quite even across producers, 2009 is a “buyer-beware” vintage, which could result in massive disappointment for consumers who invest in wines with big scores that turn out not to be to their taste.
 
The best solution to this sticky situation for wine enthusiasts is to have a personal relationship with a merchant who knows their palates and preferences.  2009 red Bordeaux isn’t yet on the market, but when it is, the happiest consumers will be those who have someone to help them navigate the minefield with aplomb and so they can them wines they’ll love for years to come.