Bordeaux 2008 at Ten Years
I remember well my first encounter with the wines of the 2008 vintage, in Bordeaux, during the primeur tastings. The defining feature on the left bank was a rather light and crystalline fruit character, many wines I tasted defined by a crisp redcurrant or cranberry fruit profile. They were pretty wines, but for young barrel samples, they were not the most inspiring. Where was the texture, the substance, the ripe core of tannins, to counter their fresh acid profiles? The right bank wines, meanwhile, showed a little more breadth and substance, 2008 being one of the several more challenging vintages that came during the first decade of the 21st century when the earlier-ripening Merlot of the right bank had a very slight advantage.
Despite this somewhat uninspiring first impression, however, it was clear at the time that there were a number of appealing wines in this vintage, provided you knew where to look. Many hailed from the right bank, as the above paragraph should perhaps suggest, but some of the most prestigious terroirs of the left bank, from St Estèphe all the way down to Pessac-Léognan, also came good. They were all wines in a fresher style, cool and bright, more akin to 2004 and 2002 than the likes of 2005 or 1995, and their lustre quickly began to fade when I first revisited them, two years later, as 2010 drew to a close. Of course, by this time I was no longer tasting the wines in the context of the preceding vintages, the dreary 2007 and the rather nondescript 2006, but in the context of those vintages that had followed, which were the seductive and voluptuous 2009, and the robust, brooding and sinewy 2010. These two years gave us a slew of seemingly great wines which cast a long shadow over 2008.
