Bordeaux 2009 at Four Years: St Emilion
The wines featured in this review of 2009 Bordeaux at four years of age were tasted at the Institute of Masters of Wine annual Bordeaux tasting, an event at which I have been a regular attendee for a few years now. Usually I make my way round the wines from Pessac-Léognan and the Médoc before I saunter into the small side chamber where the right bank wines are gathered. This year, though, I went straight for these latter wines, starting with St Emilion and moving on to Pomerol. The reason for this was simple; I have long been convinced by the wines of the left bank in 2009, the Cabernet-dominated wines showing magnificent character, but I have long held niggling doubts about the right bank appellations, and in particular certain wines in St Emilion. After all, it was the wines of this appellation that concerned me most at the primeurs, and they were the reason I refused to consider 2009 to be a truly ‘great’ vintage. Because, without labouring the point, my view of a great vintage is one in which all regions have excelled; to describe a Bordeaux vintage as ‘great’ I want uniform joy from all the red wine appellations (it seems a bit churlish to demand excellence in the dry and sweet white wines as well) and at all price points. That its the sort of picture you have in 2005, probably the best example of such a vintage, and also 2000 although many left bank wines in that vintage show a trace of green (which doesn’t bother me, but looking back at the vintage more than ten years on I am surprised the wines were so widely acclaimed). In 2009 the issue was not greenness (not here anyway – see my 2009 Margaux report if higher concentrations of methoxypyrazine are what you require) but over-ripeness (combined with all the winemaking shenanigans you find in every vintage in St Emilion). And so, for this review of the 2009 vintage at four years of age, I wanted to taste these wines early, with my mind and palate in as fresh a state as was possible, and thereby give myself a chance to revisit and retaste later in the day any wines I found particularly troubling.
For some of these wines, this was my third or fourth taste since the vintage (provided we include my tastings from barrel – I appreciate and acknowledge that many quite rightly question the validity of notes made on samples ‘selected’ from barrel). I have found over the course of these tastings that some wines have remained very consistent over this time.
