Bordeaux 2002 At Fifteen Years
Moving on from my very recent look at the 2002 Loire vintage at fifteen years of age, I come now to 2002 Bordeaux at the same stage in its life. This is a vintage with which I have already had many tasting encounters and opportunities over these fifteen years, not least with wines from my own cellar. And indeed, it is a dozen of these wines which are the basis for this tasting report. Some I have included in other tastings before but some, such as the respective 2002s from Vieux Château Certan and Domaine Chevalier, I have subjected to the corkscrew for the first time.
Bordeaux 2002
What we already know:
- A cool vintage, the wines leaner, acid-fresh and savoury
- Parker skipped the vintage, and the wines were dirt cheap
- Some critics advised drinking these wines in 2009, at just seven years of age
As always, what matters most is how the wines show, and any guidance (which you can extrapolate onto other wines, or not, as you see fit) I can come up with on whether the wines of this vintage are ready for drinking. Or indeed whether they should be drunk up with haste. Nevertheless, a few words on the season and harvest is usually worthwhile, in this case to serve as a reminder why this vintage turned out so many light and acid-fresh wines. The principal problems were damp weather during a prolonged flowering, followed by a depressingly cool and wet summer.
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