Summary of the 2009 Vintage
We can clearly say it is without doubt an excellent vintage. Almost perfect growing conditions and weather during harvest, despite a few hail storms in May but none of the big boys were affected.

It was a vintage without extremes in many cases. It rained at the right times and the temperatures ideal and not extreme like 2003.

It looks like the Cabernet grapes have performed slightly better than the merlot and as a result many Chateaux have put more Cabernet in their final blend and more merlot has gone into the second wines. We personally think that some Chateau have picked too late in their quest for optimum ripeness and concentration in flavour. As a result their wines have become slightly higher in alcohol. This has occurred more on the right bank (St Emilion and Pomerol) rather than on the left bank.

Everyone wants to know how the vintage compares to previous vintages. Bill Blatch in our view provides one of the best analysis. “Overall, of all the great vintages of the last 100 years, ’09 seems to have more in common with the silky concentration of ’82, ‘47 or ’29, rather than the more robust tannic balance of ’05, ’00 or ’28. Yet it does not seem to have all the warm, exotic softness of the extreme heat-wave vintages ’03, ’90 and ’21, nor the more traditional style of the ’45 and ’61 (which got their concentration primarily from the tiny yields caused by freak late May frosts).  Comparisons to other vintages are proverbially difficult to make, but maybe we can say that ’09 is what ’82 or ’85 would have been if the vineyard and the yields had been managed as today, or what the ’47 would have been if the vinification had been controlled as today. All of these historic vintages seem to share the same sweetness of concentrated fruit as the ‘09, but in those days, 12% for the Cabs and 13% for the Merlots was the absolute maximum. These ‘09s have, in addition, far higher alcohol levels which make the vintage – so far – unique. Better? We’ll see.”

At the moment our biggest concern is all the hype and how this will affect prices. We are doing our best to secure allocations when they are released and will put out a weekly review when the campaign starts properly so that you aren’t overwhelmed with emails. We will allocate stocks first to those who bought from us last year. We have never seen such demand for the top Chateau, it would be helpful if you could send us your wish list and we will do our best.

Investing in wine? In my opinion, wine is a commodity and like all commodities it’s all about supply and demand and simple economics. Demand in great vintages, are often created by the top wine critics. The top critics are Robert Parker and his sidekick Neal Martin, James Suckling, Jancis Robinson and Steven Spurrier. For this reason we have collated their tasting notes and scores.

We are also seeing an increased demand for the following reasons

1. The top investment wine last year (2008 vintage) has increased in value by 250%.
2. No Capital Gain tax on wine investment
- People are fed up paying high taxes and looking for good alternative investments
3. Money tide up in bank accounts is currently giving a poor return.
4. Wine Investment is now an international market and less affected by Governments or single Country economics.
5. Top Critics are all over the 2009 vintage
Jancis Robinson “I have never given so many really high scores when tasting en primeur anywhere… The wines were, in general, a huge pleasure to taste, with luscious ripeness but also in more cases quite enough acidity and heavily disguised, often record levels of tannin.”

Robert Parker “2009 may turn out to be the finest vintage I have tasted in 32 years of covering Bordeaux. From top to bottom, 2009 is not as consistent as 2005, but the peaks of quality in 2009 may turn out to be historic”
An analysis of  Robert Parker’s scores looking at the Top 30 Chateaux his average scores are:
                      2000 96.2/100      2005 95/100      2009  96.7/100

Note: Wine Scores in the list with an * are the finest potential of all the offerings he has ever tasted from this estate in nearly 32 years of barrel tasting.

If you are considering buying En Primeur please contact James Goodhart on 01765 688200 as soon as possible to register your interest and receive a full copy of the report with our recommendations.  Once the campaign starts we will publish some of the wines on the website, most wines will be allocated straight after release and move as quickly as they come in, there will only be a fraction of wines available on the website to buy online. Go to 2009 En Primeur Wines for a full list of wines available to buy on the website.  Please note if the wines have not been released the price and stock will be showing as zero and the wine will have estimated prices showing in the description.

Please see our En Primeur:Help page for further information or return to our website home page

 
OUR 2009 EN PRIMEUR RECOMMENDATIONS

WINES OF THE VINTAGE

Latour   
Cos D’Estournel  
Angelus
Lafite    
Montrose   
Tertre Roteboeuf
Mouton Rothschild  
Vieux Chateau Certan  
Dom de Chevalier Rouge
Haut Brion   
Troplong Mondot  
Pavie Macquin
Margaux   
Leoville Poyferre  
Leoville Lascases
La Mission   
Cheval Blanc   
Calon Segur
Pontet Canet   
L’Evangile   
Suduiraut
La Mission
Haut Brion Ausone

BEST VALUE BUY (PRICE DEPENDENT)

Prieure Lichine  
Fombrauge   
La Tour Carnet
Grand Puy Ducasse  
de Fieuzal Rouge  
Saintayme
Haut Batailley   
St Pierre (St Julien)  
Clos du Marquis
Cantemerle   
Lafron Rochet   
Gloria
Du Tertre   
Ormes de Pez   
Labegorce
Armailhac   
Clerc Milon   
Gruaud Larose
Rouget    
Malartic Lagraviere

CHINESE IMPACT
The Chinese are likely to be the largest consumers of fine wines in the next 10 years. They currently have a thirst for the following wines.

Carraudes de Lafite  
Lynch Bages
Lafite    
Mouton Rothschild
Duhart Milon   
Beychevelle
All good value first growth
 
James Goodhart
Managing Director
Bon Coeur Fine Wines Ltd

29th April 2009

 

To read the full review which is also in a printable format, please click on the link below and scroll down to the bottom of the page for the PDF document.

bordeaux-2009-review-jg-april-2010

Summary of the Vintage

A surprisingly good vintage much richer in style with fuller tannins than the 2007. Despite some weather conditions being similar to 2007 all stages of the vines development and the maturation of the grape throughout the year was much slower, concentrating the fruit flavours. There was also frost in April that killed the early buds which reduced the size of the vintage but this helped concentrate the remaining bunches. They were saved at almost the 12th hour for the second year running. When I was in Bordeaux in early September the risk of rot was very high yet the grapes were still lacking in ripeness. It looked like many producers would be forced to pick early to avoid losing the entire crops to rot. But this all changed on the 13th September when they were blessed with fine, dry weather that lasted until the 27th October. Some Chateau even picked into November.

Vintage comparison.

This is best summed up by Bill Blatch in his vintage report “Certainly 08, with its miraculously fine autumn, has nothing to do with the rainy autumn vintages 71-72-73-74-76-79-80-87-91-92-93-94-99-06. Nor of course does it have anything in common with the all-through hot, sunny conditions of 70, 75, 82, 85, 86, 89, 90, 95, 96, 00, 03 and 05. Comparison has to be with other good vintages when a dull summer gave way to a dry autumn like 78, 83, 01, 02 and 07 and with other very late harvests like 78, 88, 98 and 04. 

Of these, the wines seem to bear little resemblance to the grassier 78s, to the harder 02s, to the lighter 07s, to the greener Cabernets of 88 and 98 or to the stricter 04s. The closer matches seem to be, both meteorologically and wine-wise to 83 and 01, but both of these made tighter-styled and leaner wines than 08, 83 presumably because the warm June-July of that year arrived on grapes that were less well advanced than 08, with the result that the similarly cool showery August and dry autumn did not have time to finish the ripening so effectively as in 08, and 01 because, for some reason, the drab June-July of that year never really got caught up by the hot August and the cool dry autumn. The best of the 08s will certainly have a darkness of colour, a concentration of middle-weight and a strength of ripe tannin that these vintages don’t have, whilst retaining that fundamental slightly sharper character of all the late-harvest vintages.”

Price

Price and value is the biggest factor if you should buy the 2008’s. In a very cautious market where everyone wants there money to go further and exchange rates against sterling it is going to be difficult. Angelus released last week at 40% down on 2007 so it looks like the Bordelais are listening but only time will tell if they will go far enough.

Releases to date:

(If the wine is highlighted in red you can link through to our website to see more notes)   

For a full list of all 2008 releases to date click here

During the En Primeur Campaign all order request need to go through James Goodhart.  Please call 01765 688200 or email james@bcfw.co.uk

Armailhac 2008                  £235 – Good but Clerc Milon is a better buy

Beychevelle 2008                £265

Clerc Milon 2008                £259

Du Tertre 2008                  £195

Duhart Milon 2008               £265

Forts de Latour 2008            £550 – refused allocation, too expensive

Giscours 2008                   £259

Gruaud Larose 2008              £280

Lafite 2008                     £1590

Latour, Pauillac 2008           £1600 – sorry no stock

L’Evangile 2008                 £695

Leoville Barton 2008            £328

Leoville Poyferre 2008          £325

Lynch Bages 2008                £360

Margaux 2008                    £1590

Mouton Rothschild 2008          £1490 – SOLD OUT

Ormes de Pez 2008               £165 – We think this is too expensive but can get stock if required

Pavillion Rouge 2008            £315

Pichon Lalande 2008             £465

Please note: En Primeur prices exclude VAT, Duty, Delivery From UK Bond and Under Bond Transfers.   All wines go into our bonded warehouse account.  Payment is due on confirmation of order and receipt of invoice.  An additional charge of 2.5% will be incurred for credit card payments.  Cheques and bank transfers will not incur any additional charges.  Please contact us for In Bond and Duty Paid storage details.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Investing in wine has now become very popular, as more people become aware that some seriously good returns can be made if the conditions are right.

It is well documented that the ‘First Growth’ wines from Bordeaux are often the best choices for investment wines, as they are the most well known throughout the world, and they have become something of a status symbol, especially in the Asian wine markets, which this year have become one of the biggest fine wine importers, due in part to the abolition of wine import duty tax in Hong Kong.

For any readers unfamiliar with the first growths of Bordeaux they are: Chateau Lafite, Chateau Latour, Chateau Margaux, Chateau Haut Brion and Chateau Mouton Rothschild. The Sauternes appellation of Bordeaux also has a first growth which is Chateau d’Yquem, the famous sweet wine. (more…)