Ten Years On: The 2002 Vintage
Only a week or so has passed since I published my fifteen-years-on tasting of the 1997 vintage, when I recounted the tale of my adventurous (some might say foolhardy) expedition though the vineyards of the Rhône Valley and Burgundy in a car that turned out, ultimately, to be not quite up to the job. The 37 bottles from the 2002 vintage featured in this tasting report did their best to cast me into a similarly reflective mood, but it was not to be. As soon as a label bearing the vintage 1997 was flashed before my eyes, memories of my wine tour through France, as far south as Châteauneuf du Pape and then back home via Gigondas, Tain l’Hermitage, St Peray, Fleurie, Givry and Beaune (and probably one or two other stop-overs that have momentarily slipped my mind) came flooding back. But with this review of the 2002 vintage there was no such rush, perhaps for one simple reason. By 2002 I was blessed (I think that’s the right word) with three pre-school children, and I think therefore my wine adventures had been curtailed somewhat.
Having said that, from a vinous point of view I was certainly leading a very different life in 2002 compared to the one I had five years earlier. In 1997 I had blindly fumbled my way around the Rhône and Burgundy, hitting some great producers such as Clos des Papes almost by chance, at other times missing the obvious addresses to visit. I mean, fancy camping just outside Tain l’Hermitage for two days and not visiting Chave, Jaboulet or Chapoutier!
Five years later, however, I was a very different creature. Having been flat broke when I bought my first house, I had drank every bottle I owned and not restocked, but my cellar had been reborn with purchases from 1997 onwards (and I’ve never looked back since). In addition I was a regular attendee at two local tasting groups, including one which focused greatly on Bordeaux and which was somewhat formative. And, finally, I was writing online on Winedoctor. The site was very different back then, an internet toddler learning to walk. It was perhaps more a personal blog of my drinking, which seemed to feature everything from Chile to Chablis, rather than the hopefully more useful and certainly more focused Bordeaux and Loire resource it has grown into today.
