Bordeaux 2010 at Two Years
As I write this introduction to my report on Bordeaux 2010 at Two Years I am looking out of my office window along a vista of the East Lothian countryside. Well, if a hedge, a field and a row of trees, visible between the houses opposite, counts as a vista, that is. Outside as far as I can see the world has turned monochrome, white snow coating the fields and hedgerows; a blizzard of snowflakes, moving almost horizontally across the landscape, all but obscures my view of the Douglas firs in the distance, which appear as no more than a grey smudge behind the swirling flakes. It is in fact not that cold – the thermometer outside reads exactly 0ºC – but the snow is nevertheless piling up in a drift beneath my window.
It is at first glance all a very far cry from the subject of this vintage report; in Bordeaux, the summer of 2010 was marked not by precipitation, snow (now that would make for an interesting vintage report) or otherwise, but by extreme drought. Despite this seemingly black mark against it, having finished the picking and duly tasted the fermenting must, the Bordelais proclaimed it from the outset to be yet another great vintage. Prices, in keeping with the building hyperbole, were clearly set to rise. The collective sighs of penniless Bordeaux addicts, who by a catastrophic freak of chance were all facing south when they heard the news, were sufficient to shift the axis of the earth around a few degrees. Astronomers and scientists may not have noticed it, or are perhaps keeping this information tucked under their hats as part of yet another global conspiracy (rather like those that concern ‘natural’ wine, and the identity of the new owners of the Wine Advocate), but this shift in the earth’s axis is undoubtedly what is responsible for the rather dramatic change of weather now visible from my office.
And you thought my mention of snow was an irrelevant aside, didn’t you?
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