The Bordeaux En Primeur season is upon us – when wine enthusiasts eyes, ears and noses spring into life searching for news and offers of last year’s vintage.
When I was last in the wine trade, for the 1990 vintage, the pace was comparatively leisurely – it was possible to choose your time to visit Bordeaux, drive round the individual chateaux for personal tastings, talk with the owners and winemakers, write up your notes and give them to the printers so that an offer to your customers could be circulated a few weeks later.
Knowing this the chateaux would hold back on releasing their wine until everyone was ready and interest in the wines was hopefully at a peak.
After many years I am now returning to a different world. The internet means that people are hungry for news, even in advance of the official tastings, which are now all crammed into a couple of weeks.
The task of the taster is more difficult too as they have to taste many wines in a condensed period of time often at events designed to accommodate as many journalists and buyers as possible. The valuable time spent talking with winemakers is cast aside as deadlines have to be met and copy circulated through Twitter via their iPhones and Blackberrys just seconds after the ring of discarded wine hits the silver spittoon.
The taster also has to take into consideration the fact that the blends are at different stages of development and are not due to be bottled for at least another year.
When deciding whether to buy 2009 Bordeaux En Primeur yourself, it is important to keep a clear head amongst all of this background noise. The first question to ask is why you are interested at all. The main reasons for considering En Primeur are:
• To secure a stock of wines you want that might be difficult to find later
• To secure wines at a competitive price
What is clear from the internet chatter already is that 2009 will produce some remarkable wines – the weather conditions for red Bordeaux, dry white Bordeaux and sweet white wines from Sauternes and Barsac were exceptional.
Advance reports from Bill Blatch, an English Negociant well respected within the wine trade, and Denis Dubourdieux, a wine professor in Bordeaux and respected winemaker, help to confirm initial optimism.
But will it be difficult to secure stock?
This depends - rare wines are always hard to find and the En Primeur season can be the best time to buy for this reason alone. 2009 is, however, a largish crop across Bordeaux but that said, there are no guarantees that the most impressive wines won’t disappear fast.
Exchange rates can play a big part in pricing and the relative rates between the Euro, Sterling and the Dollar should be factored into any decision making.
Chateau owners across Bordeaux are in a dilemma of their own. They are sitting on a vintage of high quality at a time of global financial uncertainty and patchy demand. By pricing their wines too highly before the global recession hit they have weakened many of their traditional markets – do they price sensitively to win back customers or gamble on new markets for their wines from stronger growing economies such as China?
We won't have an answer to that until they release their prices in April. So while it may not be necessary to purchase En Primeur to get the wines you want, some people will not want to risk missing out.
The next question to ask is whether you are buying to secure wines for your own drinking or as an investment, or both (the two are not incompatible).
If drinking is your main driver then don’t forget to check that the wines are likely to suit your preferred style. If there is a taster whose palate is aligned to your own then that’s a great help but bear in mind that 2009 reds may break a few rules. The reds will be bigger, riper and more alcoholic than anything in most people’s living memory and may be too much for some palates. Winemakers may struggle to achieve that elusive balance between fruit flavours, tannins and acidity that makes any wine an instant pleasure on both the nose and palate.
My own personal experience is with Sauternes and here I know that something truly remarkable has happened. Some of the sweetest wines on record have been made and yet they appear as light, fresh and full of fruit as anything I can remember, a result of a fantastic week in October when the botrytis hit the grapes in a wave that had all chateaux picking perfect fruit as fast as they could.
Denis Dubourdieux, owner of Doisy Daene and Cantegril in Barsac agrees and compares the vintage with the legendary 1921.
“The great sweet white Sauternes and Barsac wines are impressively rich and powerful, with great purity and depth. They are, without any exaggeration, absolutely fantastic!â€
I cannot disagree and am confident that these wines have the structure to amaze drinkers over many decades.
The last consideration should be security. It pays to buy using a credit card where you are usually afforded some protection - but do check the terms and conditions of the insurance and if these are unsatisfactory then consider additional insurance. Many of the wines do not come cheap and peace of mind does have a value.
Get Bill Blatch's 2009 Sauternes report Free at www.bordeauxgold.com and Denis Dubourdieux' report via www.denisdubourdieu.fr
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