The grape escape: 2008 Burgundy Revisited and a peek at 2009

Narrowly avoiding the ash clouds that nearly prevented my annual escape from the London Wine Trade fair, I head to Burgundy for a chance to re-taste 2008 and take an early peek at the already well-reputed 2009s.

Most Red 2008s are now ready to be bottled and though, admittedly, its a perfect time to taste, they look fabulous, even lovelier than from barrel in November. It may not be a totally homogenous vintage but there are so many great examples of red 08s from the top producers. Every grower I have spoken to this week considers it a genuinely top vintage for Pinot Noir and I have to admit I am totally seduced, too. Such a balance of Pinot purity, freshness, ripe fruit and roundness, with a nice little tannic kick. Freddy Mugnier himself describes it as "a vintage I adore, like 2001 but better, more refined." Anyone who has been lucky enough to drink any of the quite glorious Cote de Nuits 2001s recently will know this is praise indeed.

Then there is the small matter of 2009. The most flattering vintage I have tasted at this early stage, more so than 1999, even the likes of d'Angerville's Clos des Ducs and Liger-Belair's La Romanee, the most serious of wines, were impressively forthcoming; whilst Cecile Tremblay appears to have made a sensational range from top to bottom. There is still plenty of time and elevage to go for these 2009s, I will see in November how the summer has treated them so lets not be hasty, but it has to be said in their current state they are difficult to resist: Suave, very fruity and with a smooth texture that belies their great power and persistance. Mostly it seems a decent size crop (fingers crossed this is reflected at allocation time !!) Picking date was a fine balance as fruit ripened at a pace, so it is feasible there may be one or two disappointments more than with the extraordinarily reliable 2005s, we shall see, but there will plenty of absolute crackers to feast on I have no doubt.

Liv-ex 100 storms to record high

With all the excitement and hysteria surrounding Bordeaux 2009, we seem to have missed something of a landmark. The Liv-ex 100 has powered its way back to an all time high at the end of March, surpassing the July 2008 figure of 264.14. April’s figures show even more positive growth closing at 281.21, a rise of 6.1% for the month, an 18.6% rise for 2010 and a staggering 31.8% increase for the year.

Although all the talk is of 2009s, there appears to be no let up in demand for older vintages of classified growth claret. And who knows, the current trend for record release prices from the Place could have a further drag effect on landed vintages...

Bordeaux 2009 - Hew's Views

As the campaign gently unfolds we take a moment's pause to discuss pricing of those wines that have released, and consider what we can expect in the coming weeks.

Bordeaux 2009 – Ascension Day

It’s a public holiday in France, so no releases today, but the campaign must go on. This morning we offered Chateau Providence (£700), one of the most recent acquisitions in the JP Moueix portfolio. This is a spell-binding wine, which possesses enormous power and extraordinary complexity. Positioned right at the heart of the plateau in Pomerol, Providence has an exceptional terroir and is rapidly asserting its place amongst the top table of right bank Chateaux.

There were also two other exciting Pomerols released this week; Gazin (£545) and Certan de May (£700). Both are well reviewed by Robert Parker and are selling fast... Other notable releases so far have been Haut Marbuzet (£325), Clos des Quatre Vents (£285) and La Fleur de Gay (£720).

We don’t expect any releases tomorrow as the Bordelaise enjoy an extended weekend; however, next week could be busy. With just one full week before VINEXPO, surely some of the top Cru Bourgeois and lesser classified growths must make their move... we hope.

Bordeaux 2009 - Mouton Rothschild

An interview with Herve Beland at Mouton Rothschild in which he discusses their 2009, the quality, the price and the comparisons with other vintages.....

Sweet success

This short week has been dominated by politics and sweet wines. Most Sauternes and Barsac estates have now released with just a few big names such as Yquem, Climens and de Fargues still to come. This is an exceptional vintage with both quantity and quality. In fact most producers have never witnessed such a straightforward harvest. Rather than the usual headache of multiple trie spaced weeks apart, wine-makers enjoyed a uniform transformation in their vineyards as botrytis spread and concentrated sugars in the grapes. Countless estates told the same story; all grapes harvested in a single week, large yields (comparatively) and exceptional quality. Residual sugar levels are high, but these are balanced, fresh, complex, mineral, really engaging wines that are close in quality to the 2001s.

The star releases include Suduiraut (97-99), Rieussec (95-97) and Coutet (96-98). All scores are taken from The Wine Advocate issue 188. We were also particularly impressed with Doisy Vedrines, which, at £245 per case looks tremendous value.

As with the Left Bank and the Right Bank, we asked our tasting team to list their top five Sauternes/Barsac. Unsurprisingly, Yquem and Climens run out as clear winners, but there were strong showings from Rieussec, Doisy Vedrines, de Fargues and Coutet. Our results can be found below (in order of preference):

Yquem
Climens
Rieussec
Doisy Vedrines
De Fargues
Coutet
Doisy Daene
Suduiraut
Rayne Vigneau

Weekending: Riesling Greats....

Not a piece on tourism, though we are rather taken by the area. Merely a couple of photos of some of Germany's most famous vineyards to demonstrate just how steep, imposing and impressive these steep sites are.

The famous Brauneberger Juffer vineyards comletely dominates the scene in the town of Brauneberg, seen here from Oliver Haag's window.

Looking down the river from the Prum's, with Wehlener Sonnenuhr at left and off in the distance the down of Graach and the Domprobst and Himmelreich vineyards.

Piesporter's Goldtropchen in the distance, a steep, suntrap of a vineyard.

Bordeaux 2009 En Primeur: Chateau Tertre-Roteboeuf

Anybody who has tasted Francois Mitjavile's sumptuously individual and esoteric wines might well be forgiven for wondering just how he achieves the sublime balance between ripeness, precision and aromatic complexity that so sets his wines apart from others in Bordeaux. He is a man with a visionary quality, based on firm philosophical beliefs about the nature of true ripeness.

In our interview the question is put to him as to how he achieves this balance and such ripeness without losing any of his purity. The answer is enlightening.
(Added to this, off camera, he rather modestly remarked that the praise or criticism he receives for his wines were really neither here nor there, his being a mere conduit through which vineyard might express itself most naturally.)

Germany: Day 4

We wake up in Franken, it's day four and we have appointments at both Horst Sauer and Rudolph Furst. The first is regarded as one of the finest white producers in Germany, while Furst is regarded as one of the finest Red producers. We arrive at Escherndorf's "Lump" vineyard, a majestic horseshoe sweep of vineyard, on time. Sandra and Horst meet us. After a brief tour of their newly modernised winery we are once again shown the depth of quality in 2009; from the driest of Rieslings to a 300g/l Sylvaner Eiswein. Their wines are the purest and most complex expressions of riesling from the limestone soil.

Appointment number two, Furst. The first time we've been to the estate and our focus is on their much lauded Pinot Noirs. The red sandstone slopes of the Main have had Pinot planted here since the 1600s and today the Furst esate comprises 10ha of Pinot Vines in two separate vineyards; Centgrafenburg and Klingenburger. These are very pure wines with high levels of elegance and clarity, with a quiet intensity to the morello cherry fruit and delicate haunting length.

Germany: Day 3

Springtime in the Nahe and it's looking extremely pretty as we snake our way down to Oberhausen to meet Helmut Donnhoff, a man full of the joys...and quite rightly so with a vintage like 2009 in his cellar. We tasted a really exciting trio of Grosses Gewachs (Grand Cru) that we will be offering come the first of September. The more we taste these intense dry wines from the region the more excited we get. The stringent vineyard grape selection and warmer recent vintages are giving really ripe, fruit acidities to balance the steely Riesling focus.

At Emrich-Schonleber we tasted more superb 2009 Grosse Gewachs, followed by examples from 1999 and 2002 (at the time labelled Auslese Trocken). It was very revealing. These are quite evidently serious wines that can age wonderfully, gaining in complexity while losing none of their crisp, Riesling precision. Take note these are wines to watch.


Not to be eclipsed were the sweet wines. At both aforementioned estates we saw collections that resoundingly prove what an impressive a vintage 2009 is across the board. As Frank at Emrich-Schonleber commented, "there is less sharpness of minerality than 2008, they are bigger in body and very well balanced. They are perhaps closer to 2007, but with more finesse".



Our last stop of the day was with Klaus-Peter Keller who put the quality of 2009 down to a very cold second half of October. This "refrigerator temperature". period allowed the grapes to develop in complexity without increasing in must weight or decreasing in acidity. It's a truly great year here at Keller and undoubtedly one of the collections of the vintage.

Bordeaux 2009 settles into the starting blocks.

So everyone has now heard about the Bordeaux 2009 vintage. At Justerini & Brooks we have used our new website to augment our traditional approach to commenting on a new vintage with our blogs and video interviews to try and provide our customers with greater insight, and we will continue to release further interviews over the coming days. All the critics have also now published their views, and this week most collectors will have been studying the just-released musings of the American critic Robert Parker. We view his influence, or more specifically his impact, with mixed feelings. However, there is little doubt that, though not without disappointment, it is a vintage which justifies some exceptional claims. Our tasting notes on each of the wines have been uploaded on to the website, and we expect the campaign of releases to begin imminently. We do not, sadly, expect this to be a quick campaign. In fact with the hiatus scheduled for late May to accommodate a VinExpo in Hong Kong, we are presuming many of the top Chateaux will not be releasing their wines until June.

Justerini & Brooks get large allocations of classed growths, and our full buying team will be active throughout the campaign as usual. However, we are expecting demand to exceed supply with certain estates. In the interest of fairness we will continue to operate our allocation process where this becomes the case, which is based on a customer's three year cumulative spend with us. Our intention as always is to reward customer loyalty and those who collect a broader range of wines. We are not an investment club.

As with every vintage, our team of eight spent a week in Bordeaux tasting every wine we will offer. Please contact your account manager to let them know which wines you are interested in, or alternatively e-mail wishlist@justerinis.com . It is imperative that if you do not currently receive our e-mailed offers you also register your e-mail address into the J&B website to ensure you receive our notifications.

Spring has arrived when one hears the first cuckoo. Or if you are a wine lover, when en primeur begins. We have had a long cold winter, and it seems this year Spring is late.

Chateau Canon dinner and tasting

Our private dining room in St. James’s has been the setting for countless memorable wine dinners over the years and decades. But last night was a very special evening. John Kolasa, who runs Chateau Canon, came over to have dinner with a few selected guests and brought some fabulous wines with him. The evening started with a tasting in our cellars. Firstly with a barrel sample of the 2009 Canon, which was deeply impressive and full of velvety structure and perfume, which seems to be the signature of this vintage. The 2005, 2002 and 2000 were also shown. The 2005 was still a baby, but a genuine delight was the 2002, which had far more richness than was expected and if served blind would, we are quite certain, be placed by all in a grand vintage. The best of the 2002s remain some of the great deals in Bordeaux.

After a quick glass of Pommery Cuvee Louise ’99 to prepare ourselves for dinner, we headed off to the dining room. The first wine of the meal was the 1998 and it showed what Chateau Canon can do with sufficient age. The 1998s have now begun shrugging off their tannic cloaks and this wine was full of seductive vivacity and lift – absolutely beautiful, and a great match with the monkfish wrapped in Parma ham. The remaining three vintages were then all served from magnum. The 1985 had evolved into a mature, seamless and silky wine; very elegant indeed, and flattering to the savoury mille-feuille of porcini mushrooms. Next was a magnum of 1979, not by any means a good vintage in Bordeaux, but brought by John to show what great terroir can do in average years. The wine had restraint and class and, it seems, many years still ahead of it. It certainly stood up to the roasted sirloin rib. But the wine of the night was the 1955 Canon. This was absolutely outstanding. It tasted as if it were 30 years younger than it is, and was so seductive and still full of richness. It was so good in fact we drank two magnums!

With a delightful evening at a close a few of us then went on to Annabel’s. One of those ideas that seemed good at the time...

Germany 2009: Day 2

The day's tasting began at Willi Schaefer where we were met by the charming Christophe Schaefer.

In tasting our way through a beautiful set of wines from the Himmelreich and Domprobst vineyards in the village of Graach we discovered great "ripeness and structure but also fantastic ripe acidity". We came away stuck by their finesse, elegance and purity. An estate doing great things.

On route to Maximin Grunhaus we stopped at Reinhold Haart to taste his wonderful Piesport Goldtropfchens. A vineyard reknowned for producing some of the richest and most opulent wines in the Mosel, the 2009s are exotic but not without refinement, their richness and almost Rheingau-esk power coming from the soft slate soils and sunbaked aspect of the site.

Lunch beckoned but not before we climbed out of the Mosel valley and over to the Ruwer for all 20 wines in Carl von Schubert's stable. Daunted we began, but it wasn't long before we were totally immersed in a thoroughly impressive set of wines. The "dry" Abtsberg Superior (allowed to ferment to its natural conclusion) was powerful, balanced and intense. The top quality sweeter wines that followed were punctuated by the particular highs of the Abtsberg Kabinett, a Herrenerg Auslese of profound minerality and a final pair of incredible, showstopping Eisweins.

The post lunch session was filled by Karthauserhof, a short drive across the village. Christophe Tyrell was on hand, describing the wines as "a little bit of 2007, a little bit of 2005 and a little bit of 2003, maybe 40%, 40% and 20%". We took this to mean as a seriously balanced vintage. Which is exactly what we tasted.

Last but by no means least was our trip to Zilliken, in Saarburg. The great Rausch vineyard showing Wonderful ripeness and good true steely character; a superb trio of Kabinet, Spatlese and Ausleses.

Tomorrow the Nahe...

Germany 2009 - Day 1

Our first appointment of the day was an extended tasting with the gregarious August Kesseler. 2009, at this estate at least, is a vintage defined by his top quality dry wines, white and red. A superb selection followed, each wine showing its terroir but also a certain winery stamp of precision, finesse and detail. During an excellent lunch we tasted some really good Pinot Noir from 2007 and 2008; taut, linear yet ripe and built on minerals, fine tannins and spice. They showed just why Kesseler, the village of Assmanshauser, and in particular the slate soils of the Hollenberg are held in such high regard for Pinot Noir. They are not Burgundy, nor are they meant to be. They are something quite different, and all the better for it.

The afternoon saw visits to both brothers Haag. Thomas at Schloss Lieser and Oliver at Fritz Haag. Thomas would not pick out any particular highlights; he believes this is an outstanding vintage across the entire range. And tasting his wines from the basic QBA right the way up to an utterly scintillating Liser Niederberg Auslese Langhe Goldkap, we were loathed to disagree. The last wine promised great things, alas the TBA was still undergoing fermentation in the cellars, so was not tasted.

Oliver's vines in the monumental Brauneberger Juffer vineyard, in whose steepest heart lies the great Sonnenuhr, have done it again. Oliver describes 2009 as "a vintage that has more power than 2008, and perhaps more acidity than 2007". Here we did get to taste both BA and TBA, and we were not disappointed. Intense, brilliant with pitch perfect balance and huge levels of extract and acidity. They are quite simply sublime.

Our last appointment and it was along the Mosel and across the bridge to Wehlener to visit Manfred Prum. He has produced an outstanding set of 2009s, which even at the end of a long day’s tasting impressed us enormously. They are fascinating wines of great purity, backwardness, latent power and focus. They will require patience, but will undoubtedly reward those able to wait.

Tomorrow Schaeffer, Von Schubert and more......

Bordeaux 2009 - Parker is out!

This is often the biggest day in the year for many Chateaux, negociants, merchants and collectors; the day Robert Parker releases his scores for the current Bordeaux vintage. We have been waiting with bated breath for Big Bob’s reaction to this already massively hyped vintage. And he hasn’t disappointed, `for some Médocs and Graves, 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`.

The headlines are impressive; more potentially perfect scores than ever before, 21 in all and a host of wines flirting with perfection in the 96-99 point category. There is also a new asterisk system that denotes the greatest potential seen at the estate in Robert’s 32 years of tasting; we lost count of the number of asterisked wines, but it is worth pointing out two outstanding successes that we got very excited about and it would seem that Mr Parker shares our enthusiasm: the sublime Saint Pierre from St Julien, which receives 94-98* and Malartic-Lagraviere Rouge, which receives 93-95*. He also continues with a message to consumers about the wines from the less celebrated appellations.

`I hope readers will take a serious look at many of the less prestigious appellations and wines from those areas as they will no doubt represent fabulous bargains in 2009. Given the overall style of the 2009s, which combine creamy, voluptuous textures and sensational fruit-driven opulence with remarkable finesse, precision, purity, and vibrancy, the best of the “little” wines will be delicious young, as will many of the classified-growths. This is a magical vintage!`

Bordeaux 2009: Alfred Tesseron, Ch. Pontet Canet

Pontet Canet from Justerini & Brooks on Vimeo.

Bordeaux 2009 – More scores (the right bank)

Time for more of our results. We asked our eight strong team to list their top ten wines from the right bank, excluding Lafleur, Le Pin, Ausone and Cheval Blanc. This proved even more chaotic than the left bank with 21 properties receiving votes. The results are in and after a little number crunching and it would seem that the J&B team have a taste for Pomerol... Gold, silver and bronze were taken by Evangile, Vieux Chateau Certan and Conseillante. Evangile edged out VCC by a nose, but interestingly only received three maximums to VCC’s four. The only other wine to take the coveted `ten points` was Denis Duarantou’s Eglise Clinet. The remaining seven spots in the top ten were contested between Tertre Roteboeuf, Angelus, Eglise Clinet and four wines from the Moueix stable: Providence, Certan de May, Hosanna and Belair-Monange.

It is also worth mentioning a few wild cards that emerged from our lists. Montlandrie, a new Castillon estate made by Denis Durantou,Tour de Pin, a St Emilion produced by the Cheval Blanc team and the exceptional Roc de Cambes made by Francois Mitjaville from the humble appellation of Côtes de Bourg.

Evangile - 71
Vieux Chateau Certan - 67
Conseillante - 59
Tertre Roteboeuf - 33
Angelus - 32
Eglise Clinet - 31
Providence - 28
Certan de May - 25
Hosanna - 23
Belair Monange - 19
Larcis Ducasse - 13
Figeac - 8
Chapelle d'Ausone - 7
Pensees de Lafleur - 7
Roc de Cambes - 6
Petit Cheval - 3
Lafleur Petrus - 2
Montlandrie - 2
Clos Fourtet - 2
Tour du Pin - 1
Canon - 1

Bruno Borie, Chateau Ducru-Beaucaillou

Visiting Ducru is always good fun. This year we were greeted with walls adorned with calligraphic tasting notes and vintage musings, the electric neon rabbit now living (and flashing) back behind a row of barrels. He gave us these words in their tubular tasting rooms, stood in front of one of his Keith Harings, on typically charming form and more than happy to talk about the pricing of these 2009s.

Chateau Ducru-Beaucaillou from Justerini & Brooks on Vimeo.

Winemakers Series: Voyager Estate, the final installment

Saturday 10th April 2010

As usually seems to happen we have had a slower couple of weeks waiting for all of the Cabernet blocks to fully ripen and we are now down to our final couple of days harvesting tomorrow and Monday. The Cabernet Sauvignon has followed a similar pattern to the Shiraz with lovely ripe flavours and perfect tannin ripeness at lower than normal sugar levels. The fruit is showing wonderful freshness and vibrancy with classic southern Margaret River flavours of cassis, mulberries and ripe red berries. The tannins are fine and ripe and, an indicator of the overall fruit ripeness, has been the woody development of the grape stalks and seeds. I do not recall a vintage where we have had such dry, crunchy seeds and, beautiful ripeness of the grape stalks with dry brown wood extending all the way to the bottom of the bunch. The overall fruit quality looks outstanding with all blocks performing to a very high level giving us a lot of exceptional batches to select from when we assemble the top wine.

The whites have all completed fermentation with the Chardonnay now in barrel for the next 12 months, and the Sauvignon Blanc Semillon components slowly being blended together.
The vintage has been our fourth very high quality season in a row which underlines the consistency of the Margaret River region and reinforces my initial perception of the region as a viticulturists paradise!

Steve James, Voyager Estate

Hew's Views: The Full Roundup

Hew's Views: The Full Roundup from Justerini & Brooks on Vimeo.