Bordelais Claim 2009 Vintage “Only Okay”

Despite the lauding of Bordeaux 2009 as another “vintage of a lifetime” by oenologists, wine journalists, and merchants, it seems as though the Bordelais themselves can be drawn no further than a half-hearted concession that the vintage is “not the worst”.

Wine scientists say that last year’s growing season in Aquitaine could not have been better – a sublime fusion of early flowering, uniform fruit set, precocious veraison, a sunny midsummer with just enough rain – and all of it bookended by a gloriously dry harvest in early October. Dr. Cooper Johnson, an ampelographer from Adelaide’s Australian Wine Research Institute, is a visiting fellow at the University of Bordeaux : “It was a total freakshow”, he says. “They had such nice weather – no price is too high for this amazing vintage”.

But Thierry Legrand, proprietor at former Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel, Chateau Marzipan-Deshabille, in Saint-Estephe, is more circumspect: “I think it was only okay. Although the conditions were certainly extremely pleasant, it was annoying having to work in them. Francesca was at the beach every day and she had a beautiful colour by the autumn – it was like having a new wife.” Thierry says that as the summer wore on he became more and more demotivated in the vineyard until eventually he joined Francesca at their Lacanau-Ocean summer house, leaving his twenty-three year old nephew, Pierre, a law graduate, in charge.

Although Pierre did well, taking into account his inexperience, he rashly ordered the pickers to begin three weeks before phenolic ripeness in the grapes had been reached, as he had already planned an end-of-semester trip to Agadir which clashed with the optimal harvest period. Before leaving for the African frat party, he also gave instructions that half of the cabernet juice destined for the Grand Vin be blended with a small portion of sauvignon blanc “for aromatic lift”, classic Saint-Estephe being too austere in his opinion. While the resulting wine did display atractive elderflower and gooseberry aromas alongside textbook cassis, the blend unfortunately violated a number of important AC regulations and can now only be sold as humble vin de table, at huge cost to the chateau.

Across the muddy Gironde, in Pomerol, Christian Lesperre, owner of Chateau Frottage-Lesperre, is similarly lukewarm about the vintage: “For me, the year was the same as all years – flowers appeared in the spring and then grew into merlot grapes, the sun ripened these and eventually we picked them. In truth, each year is similar, no?” Chateau Frottage-Lesperre’s top wine routinely sells for £100+ in specialist UK wine merchants but Christian says he will be reducing the price this year. Casually stroking the solid gold panther statue he had commissioned for his 60th birthday last year he shook his head and laughed softly: “Everyone knows that money doesn’t grow on trees anymore, so we will be pricing back at 2002 levels to give the genuine wine lover a chance to taste our handcrafted wines.”

When it first became obvious that 2009 was going to be a stellar vintage the concern was that brand-hungry, newly-affluent, Johnny-come-lately Asians would roll into town buying up all the good stuff and driving up prices, but this worry has proved groundless. Your correspondent spoke to numerous chateaux and negotiants during the recent en primeur tastings and all were saying the same thing – we’re not interested in Chinese money.

A fairly typical response was that of Jean-Paul Desailly of acclaimed “Super Second”, Chateau Le Spiel: “We’ve been dealing with our British friends for a long time and our primary consideration is the nurturing of that very special relationship – we would never act to jeopardise it”. Furrowing his brow then, he added that Asian people don’t even have the enzyme for processing alcohol and asked: “What’s the point in drinking fine wine if your face goes pink after one glass and you have to run to the restroom to puke your brains up?”